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3RARY OF CONGRESS. 

LpU5_, Copyright No..„ 

ShelfJ.5.a.T 

TEO STATES OF AMERICA. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/aroundteatable02talm 



Around 



-N 



THE 



Tea-Table. 




BY ' 



T. De Witt Talmage, 

Author of " Crumbs Swept Up," ** Abominations of Modern Socidy/* 
" Old Wells Dug Out," Etc, 



PUBLISHED BY ^ 

Louis Klopsch, Proprietor. 
BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK. 



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Copyright 1895, 
By Louis Klopsch. 



Press and Bindery of 
HISTORICAL PUBLISHING CO., 

PHILADELPHIA. 



PREFACE. 

At breakfast we have no time to spare, for the 
duties of the day are clamoring for attention ; at 
the noon-day dining hour some of the family are 
absent; but at six o'clock in the evening we all 
come to the tea-table for chit-chat and the recital 
of adventures. We take our friends in with us— the 
more friends, the merrier. You may imagine that 
the following chapters are things said or conver- 
sations indulged in, or papers read, or paragraphs, 
made up from that interview. We now open the 
doors very wide and invite all to come in and be 
seated around the tea-table. 

T. DeW. T. 



II 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. — The table-cloth is spread .... 17 
II.— Mr. Givemfits and Dr. Butter- 
field . , 23 

III. — A growler soothed 27 

IV. — Carlo and the freezer 31 

V. — Old games repeated 37 

VI.— The full-blooded cow 41 

VII. — The dregs in Leatherback's tea- 
cup 46 

VIII.— The hot axle 50 

IX. — Beefsteak for ministers 56 

X. — Autobiography of an old pair of 

scissors 60 

XI. — A lie, zoologically considered . . 65 
XII.— A breath of English air ... . 70 

XIII.— The midnight lecture 74 

XIV.— The sexton 79 

XV.— The old cradle 84 

XVI.— The horse's letter 89 

XVII.— Kings of the kennel 94 

XVIII. — The massacre of church music . 99 
XIX.— The battle of pew and pulpit . 104 

XX.— The devil's grist-mill Ill 

XXI. — The conductor's dream 116 

XXIL— Push & Pull 121 

XXIII.— Bostonians 125 

13 



14 Contents, 

CHAP. PAGE 

XXIV.— Jonah vs. the whale ...... 129 

XXV. — Something under the sofa . . . 131 

XXVI.— The way to keep fresh 134 

XXVIL— Christmas bells ...«..«, 137 

XXVIII.— Poor preaching 139 

XXIX.— Shelves a man's index 142 

XXX.— Behavior at church 147 

XXXI. — Masculine and feminine .... 153 

XXXII.— Literary felony . 156 

XXXIII. — Literary abstinence 159 

XXXIV. — Short or long pastorates .... 161 

XXXV.— An editor's chip basket .... 163 

XXXVI. —The manhood of service .... 166 

XXXVII. —Balky people 168 

XXXVIIL— Anonymous letters 170 

XXXIX.— Brawn or brain 174 

XL. — Warm- weather religion 181 

XLI. — Hiding eggs for Easter 185 

XLIL— Sink or swim 190 

XLIIL— Shells from the beach 194 

XLIV. — Catching the bay mare 198 

XLV.— Our first and last cigar ..... 202 

XLVI. — Move, moving, moved 205 

XLVIL— The advantage of small libraries . 210 
XLVIII. — Reformation in letter writing . 215 

XLIX. — Eoyal marriages • 217 

L.— Three visits 219 

LI. — Manahachtanienks 224 

LII. — A dip in the sea 226 

LIII. — Hard shell considerations . . . .230 



Contents, 15 

CeAP. PAGE 

LIV. — Wiseman, Heavyasbricks and 

Quizzle - . 234 

LV. — A layer of waffles 247 

LVI.— Friday evening 263 

SABBATH EVENINGS. 

LYII.— The Sabbath evening tea-table . 271 
LVIIL— The warm heart of Christ . . . . 273 

LIX. — Sacrifice everything 277 

LX. — The youngsters have left .... 280 

LXI. — Family prayers 291 

LXII.— A call to sailors 295 

LXIII.—Jehoshaphat's shipping 298 

LXIV. —All about mercy 303 

LX v.— Under the camel's saddle .... 308 

LXVL— Half-and-half churches 314 

LXVII.— Thorns 317 

LXVIIL— Who touched me? 320 



AROUND THE TEA-TABLE, 



CHAPTER I. 
THE TABLE-CLOTH IS SPREAD. 

Our theory has always been, *'Eat lightly in 
the evening." While, therefore, morning and 
noon there is bountif ulness, we do not have much 
on our tea-table but dishes and talk. The most 
of the world's work ought to be finished by six 
o'clock p. m. The children are home from school. 
The wife is done mending or shopping. The 
merchant has got through with drygoods or hard- 
ware. Let the ring of the tea-bell be sharp and 
musical. Walk into the room fragrant with Oolong 
or Young Hyson. Seat yourself at the tea-table 
wide enough apart to have room to take out your 
pocket-handkerchief if you want to cry at any 
pitiful story of the day, or to spread yourself in 
laughter if some one* propound an irresistible 
conundrum. 

The bottle rules the sensual world, but the tea- 
cup is queen in all the fair dominions. Once this 
leaf was very rare, and fifty dollars a pound ; and 
when the East India Company made a present to 
the king of two pounds and two ounces, it wa?^ 
considered worth a mark in history. But now 
Uncle Sam and his wife every year pour thirty 
million pounds of it into their saucers. Twelve 

17 



i8 Around the Tea-table. 

hundred years ago, a Chinese scholar by the name 
of Lo Yu wrote of tea, ''It tempers the spirits 
and harmonizes the mind, dispels lassitude and 
relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents 
drowsiness, lightens and refreshes the body, and 
clears the perceptive faculties. ' ' Our own obser- 
vation is that there is nothing that so loosens the 
hinge of the tongue, soothes the temper, exhil- 
arates the diaphragm, kindles sociality and makes 
the future promising. Like one of the small 
glasses in the wall of Barnum's old museum, 
through which you could see cities and mountains 
bathed in sunshine, so, as you drink from the 
tea-cup, and get on toward the bottom so that it 
is sufficiently elevated, you can see almost any- 
thing glorious that you want to. We had a great- 
aunt who used to come from town with the 
pockets of her bombazine dress standing way out 
with nice things for the children, but she would 
come in looking black as a thunder cloud until 
she had got through with her first cup of tea, 
when she would empty her right pocket of sugar-^ 
plums, and having finished her second cupwould 
empty the other pocket, and after she had takem 
an extra third cup, because she felt so very chilly, 
it took all the sitting-room and parlor and kitchen 
to contain her exhilaration. 

Be not surprised if, after your friends are seated 
at the table, the style of the conversation depends 
very much on the kind of tea that the housewife 
pours for the guests. If it be genuine Young 
Hyson ,the leaves of which are gathered early in 
the season, the talk will be fresh, and spirited, 
and sunshiny. If it be what the Chinese call 
Pearl tea, but our merchants have named Gun- 
powder, the conversation will be explosive, and 
somebody's reputation will be killed before you 
get through. If it be green tea, prepared by large 
infusion of Prussian blue and gypsum, or black 



The Table-cloth is Sp7^ead. 19 

tea mixed with pulverized black lead, you may 
expect there will be a poisonous effect in the 
conversation and the moral health damaged. The 
English Parliament found that there had come 
into that country two million pounds of wnat the- 
merchants call ' ' lie tea, ' ' and, as far as I can 
estimate, about the same amount has been im- 
ported into the United States ; and when the 
housewife pours into the cups of her guests a decoc- 
tion of this ''lie tea, " the group are sure to fall 
to talking about their neighbors, and misrepre- 
senting everything they touch. One meeting of 
a "sewing society" up in Canada, where this tea 
was served, resulted in two law-suits for slander, 
four black eyes that were not originally of that 
color, the expulsion of the minister, and the 
abrupt removal from the top of the sexton's head 
of all capillary adornment. 

But on our tea-table we will have first-rate 
Ningyong, or Pouchong, or Souchong, or Oolong, 
so that the conversation may be pure and 
healthy. 

We propose from time to time to report some of 
the talk of our visitors at the tea-table. We do 
not entertain at tea many very great men. The 
fact is that great men at the tea-table for the most 
part are a bore. They are apt to be self-absorbed, 
or so profound I cannot understand them, or 
analytical of food, or nervous from having studied 
themselves half to death, or exhume a piece of 
brown bread from their coat-tail because they are 
dyspeptic, or make such solemn remarks about 
hydro-benzamide or sulphindigotic acid that the 
children get frightened and burst out crying, 
thinking something dreadful is going to happen. 
Learned Johnson, splashing his pompous wit over 
the table for Boswell to pick up, must have been 
a sublime nuisance. It was said of Goldsmith 
that ' ' he wrote like an angel and talked like poor 



20 Arotind the Tea-table. 

Poll. ' ' There is more interest in the dining- 
room when we have ordinary people than when 
we have extraordinary. 

There are men ancl women who occasionally 
meet at our tea-table whose portraits are worth 
taking. There are Dr. Butterfield, Mr. Givem- 
fits, Dr. Heavy asbricks, Miss Smiley and Miss 
Stinger, who come to see us. We expect to invite 
them all to tea very soon ; and as you will in 
future hear of their talk, it is better that I tell 
you now some of their characteristics. 

Dr. Butterfield is one of our most welcome 
visitors at the tea-table. As his name indicates, 
he is both melting and beautiful. He always 
takes pleasant views of things. He likes his tea 
^weet; and after his cup is passed to him, he 
frequently hands it back, and says, ^'This is 
really delightful, but a little more sugar, if you 
please. ' ' He has a mellowing effect upon the 
whole company. After hearing him talk a little 
while, I find tears standing in my eyes without 
any sufficient reason. It is almost as good as a 
sermon to see him wipe his mouth with a napkin. 
I would not want him all alone to tea, because it 
would be making a meal of sweetmeats. But 
ivhen he is present with others of different tem- 
perament, he is entertaining. He always reminds 
me of the dessert called floating island, beaten 
^gg on custard. On all subjects — political, social 
and religious — he takes the smooth side. He is 
a minister, and preached a course of fifty-one ser- 
mons on heaven in one year, saying that he 
would preach on the last and fifty-second Sunday 
concerning a place of quite opposite character; 
but the audience assembling on that day, in 
August, he rose and said that it was too hot to 
preach, and so dismissed them immediately with 
a benediction. At the tea-table I never could 
j)ersuade him to take any currant-jelly, for he 



The Table-clot fi is Spread. 21 

always preferred strawberry-jam. He rejects 
acidity. 

We generally place opposite him at the tea-table 
Mr, Givemfits. He is the very antipodes of Dr. 
Butterfield ; and when the two talk, you get both 
sides of a subject. I have to laugh to hear them 
talk ; and my little girl, at the controversial col- 
lisions, gets into such hysterics that we have to 
send her with her mouth full into the next room, 
to be pounded on the back to stop her from chok- 
ing. My friend Givemfits is "down on" almost 
everything but tea, and I think one reason of his 
nervous, sharp, petulant way is that he takes too 
much of this beverage. He thinks the world is 
very soon coming to an end, and says, "The 
sooner the better, confound it!" He is a literary 
man, a newspaper writer, a book critic, and so 
on ; but if he were a minister, he would preach a 
course of fifty-one sermons on "future punish- 
ment," proposing to preach the fifty-second and 
last Sabbath on ' ' future rewards ; ' ' but the last 
Sabbath, coming in December, he would say to 
his audience, "Really, it is too cold to preach. 
We will close w^th the doxology and omit the 
benediction, as I must go down by the stove to 
warm. ' ' 

He does not like women — thinks they are of no 
use in the world, save to set the tea a-drawing. 
Says there was no trouble in Paradise till a female 
came there, and that ever since Adam lost the rib 
woman has been to man a bad pain in the side. 
He thinks that Dr. Butterfield, who sits opposite 
him at the tea-table, is something of a hypocrite, 
and asks him all sorts of puzzling questions. The 
fact is, it is vinegar-cruet against sugar-bowl in 
perpetual controversy. I do not blame Givemfits 
as much as many do. His digestion is poor. The 
chills and fever enlarged his spleen. He has 
frequent attacks of neuralgia. Once a w^eek he 



:22 Around the Tea-table. 

iias the sick headache. His liver is out of order. 
He has twinges of rheumatism. Nothing he ever 
takes agrees with him but tea, and that doesn't. 
He has had a good deal of trial, and the thunder 
<A trouble has soured the milk of human kind- 
ness. When he gets criticising Dr. Butterfield's 
sermons and books, I have sometimes to pretend 
that I hear somebody at the front door, so that I 
•can go out in the hall and have an uproarious 
laugh without being indecorous. It is one of the 
great amusements of my life to have on opposite 
sides of my tea-table Dr. Butterfield and Mr. 
Oivemfits. 

But we have many others who come to our tea- 
table : Miss Smiley, who often runs in about six 
o'clock. All sweetness is Miss Smiley. She 
seems to like everybody, and everybody seems 
to like her. Also Miss Stinger, sharp as a hornet, 
prides herself on saying things that cut ; dislikes 
men ; cannot bear the sight of a pair of boots ; 
loathes a shaving apparatas ; thinks Eve would 
have shown better capacity for housekeeping if 
she had, the first time she used her broom, swept 
Adam out of Paradise. Besides these ladies, 
many good, bright, useful and sensible people of 
all kinds. In a few days we shall invite a group 
of them to tea, and you shall hear some of their 
discussions of men and books and things. We 
shall order a canister of the best Young Hyson, 
pull out the extension- table, hang on the kettle, 
stir the blaze, and with chamois and silver- 
powder scour up the tea-set that we never use save 
^when we have company. 



CHAPTER II. 
MR. GIVEMFITS AND DR. BUTTERFIELD. 

The tea-kettle never sang a sweeter song than on 
the evening I speak of. It evidently knew that 
company was coming. At the appointed time our 
two friends, Dr. Butterfield and Mr. Givemfits, 
arrived. As already intimated, they were opposite 
in temperament — the former mild, mellow, fat, 
good-natured and of fine digestion, always seeing 
the bright side of anything ; the other, splenetic, 
harsh, and when he swallowed anything was not 
sure whether he would be the death of it, or it 
would be the death of him. 

No sooner had they taken their places opposite 
each other at the table than conversation opened. 
As my wife was handing the tea over to Mr. 
Givemfits the latter broke out in a tirade against 
the weather. He said that this winter was the 
most unbearable that had ever been known in the 
almanacs. When it did not rain, it snowed ; and 
when it was not mud, it was sleet. At this point 
he turned around and coughed violently, and said 
that in such atmosphere it was impossible to keep 
clear of colds. He thought he would go South. 
He would rather not live at all than live in such 
a climate as this. No chance here, save for doc- 
tors and undertakers, and even they have to take 
their own medicines and lie in their own coffins. 
At this Dr. Butterfield gave a good-natured laugh, 
and said, ^^I admit the inconveniences of the 
w^eather; but are you not aware that there has 
been a drought for three years in the country, 
and great suffering in the land for lack of rain? 
We need all this wet weather to make an equi- 

23 



24 Around the Tea-table, 

iibrium. What is discomfort to you is the wealth, 
of the land. Besides that, I find that if I cannot 
get sunshine in the open air I can carry it in the 
crown of my hat. He who has a warm coat, and 
a full stove, and a comfortable house, ought not 
to spend much of his time in complaint. ' ' 

Miss Smiley slid this moment into the conver- 
sation with a hearty *'Ha! ha!" She said, 
**This last w^inter has been the happiest of my 
life. I never hear the winds gallop but I want to 
join them. The snow is only the winter in 
blossom. Instead of here and there on the pond^ 
the whole country is covered with vv^hite lilies. I 
have seen gracefulness enough in the curve of a 
snowdrift to keep me in admiration for a wxek. 
Do you remember that morning after the storms 
of sleet, when every tree stood in mail of ice, 
with drawn sword of icicle? Besides, I think 
the winter drives us in, and drives us together. 
We have never had such a time at our house with 
checker-boards and dominoes, and blind-man's- 
buff, and the piano, as this winter. Father and 
mother said it seemed to them like getting mar- 
ried over again. Besides that, on nights when 
the storm was so great that the door-bell went to 
bed and slept soundly, Charles Dickens stepped in 
from Gad's Hill; and Henry W. Longfellow, 
without knocking, entered the sitting-room, his 
hair white as if he had walked through the snow 
with his hat off ; and William H. Prescott, with 
his eyesight restored, happened in from Mexico, 
a cactus in his buttonhole; and Audubon set 
a cage of birds on the table — Baltimore oriole, 
chaffinch, starling and bobolink doing their 
prettiest; and Christopher North thumped his 
gun down on the hall floor, and hung his 'sport- 
ing jacket' on the hat- rack, and shook the carpet 
brown with Highland heather. As Walter Scott 
came in his dog scampered in after him, and put 



Mr. Givernfits and Dr. Butterjicld. 25 

both paws up on the marble-top table ; and Min- 
nie asked the old man why he did not part his 
hair better, instead of letting it hang all over his 
forehead, and he apologized for it by the fact 
that he had been on a long tramp from Melrose 
Abbey to Kenil worth Castle. But I think as 
thrilling an evening as w^e had this winter was 
with a man who w^alked in with a prison-jacket, 
his shoes mouldy, and his cheek pallid for the 
want of the sunlight. He was so tired that he 
went immediately to sleep. He would not take 
the sofa, saying he was not used to that, but 
he stretched himself on the floor and put his 
head on an ottoman. At first he snored dread- 
fully, and it was evident he had a horrid dream ; 
but after a while he got easier, and a smile 
came over his face, and he woke himself sing- 
ing and shouting. I said, 'What is the mat- 
ter with you, and w^hat were you dreaming 
about?' 'Well,' he said, 'the bad dream I had 
w^as about the City of Destruction, and the happy 
dream was about the Celestial City;' and we all 
knew him right away, and shouted, 'Glorious old 
John Bunyan! How is Christiana?' So, you 
see," said Miss Smiley, "on stormy nights we 
really have a pleasanter time than when the moon 
and stars are reigning." 

Miss Stinger had sat quietly looking into her 
tea- cup until this moment, w^hen she clashed her 
spoon into the saucer, and said, "If there is any 
thing I dislike, it is an attempt at poetry when 
you can't do it. I know some people who always 
try to show themselves in public ; but when they 
are home, they never have their collar on straight, 
and in the morning look like a w^hirlwind break- 
fasting on a haystack. As for me, I am practical, 
and winter is winter, and sleet is sleet, and ice 
is ice, and a tea-cup is a tea-cup ; and if you will 
pass mine up to the hostess to be resupplied, I 



26 Around the Tea-table. 

will like it a great deal better than all this senti- 
mentalism. No sweetening, if you please. I d@ 
not like things sweet. Do not put in any of your 
beautiful snow for sugar, nor stir it witti an 
icicle. '* 

This sudden jerk in the conversation snapped 
it off, and for a moment there was quiet. ^ I knew 
not how to get conversation started again. Our 
usual way is to talk about the weather ; but that 
subject had been already exhausted. 

Suddenly I saw the color for the first time in 
years come into the face of Mr. Givemfits. The 
fact was that, in biting a hard crust of bread, he 
had struck a sore tooth which had been troubling 
liim, and he broke out with the exclamation, 
^*Dr. Butterfield, the physical and moral world is 
degenerating. Things get worse and worse. Look, 
for instance, at the tone of many of the news- 
papers; gossip, abuse, lies, blackmail, make up 
the chief part of them, and useful intelligence is 
the exception. The public have more interest in 
murders and steamboat explosions than in the 
items of mental and spiritual progress. Church 
and State are covered up with newspaper mud. ' ' 

* * Stop ! ' ' said Dr. Butterfield. * * Don't you ever 
buy newspapers?" 



CHAPTER III. 
A GROWLER SOOTHED. 

Gi vemfits said to Dr. Butterfield, * ' You asked 
me last evening if I ever bought newspapers. I 
reply, Yes, and write for them too. 

^^But I see their degeneracy. Once you could 
believe nearly all they said ; now he is a fool 
who believes a tenth part of it. There is the 
New York * Scandalmonger, ' and the Philadel- 
phia * Prestidigitateur, ' and the Boston * Prolific, * 
which do nothing but hoodwink and confound 
the public mind. Ten dollars wall get a favor- 
able report of a meeting, or as much will get it 
caricatured. There is a secret spring behind 
almost every column. It depends on what the 
editor had for supper the night before whether 
he wants Foster hung or his sentence commuted. 
If the literary man had toast and tea, as weak as 
this before me, he sleeps soundly, and next day 
says in his columns that Foster ought not to be 
executed ; he is a good fellow, and the clergymen 
who went to Albany to get him pardoned were 
engaged in a holy calling, and their congregations 
had better hold fast of them lest they go up like 
Elijah. But if the editor had a supper at eleven 
o^ clock at night of scallops fried in poor lard, 
and a little too much bourbon, the next day he 
is headachy, and says Foster, the scalawag, ought 
to be hung, or beaten to death with his own car- 
hook, and the ministers who went to Albany^ to 
get him pardoned might better have been taking 
tea with some of the old ladies. I have been be- 
hind the scenes and know all about it, and must 
admit that I have done some of the bad work 

27 



28 Around the Tea-table. 

myself. I have on my writing-stand thirty or 
forty books to discuss as a critic, and the colmnn 
must be made up. Do you think I take time to 
read the thirty or forty books? No. I first take 
a dive into the index, a second dive into the 
preface, a third dive into the four hundredth 
page, the fourth dive into the seventieth page, 
and then seize my pen and do up the whole job 
in fifteen minutes. I make up my mind to like 
the book or not to like it, according as I admire 
or despise the author. But the leniency or severity 
of my article depends on whether the room is 
cold and my rheumatism that day is sharp or 
easy. Speaking of these things reminds me that 
the sermon which the Eight Reverend Bishop 
Goodenough preached last Sunday, on ^Growth in 
Grace, ' was taken down and brought to our office 
by a reporter who fell over the door- sill of the 
sanctum so drunk we had to help him up and 
fish in his pockets for the bishop's sermon on 
holiness of heart and life, which we were sure 
was somewhere about him. ' ' 

^*Tut! tut!" cried Dr. Butterfield. ''\ think, 
Mr. Givemfits, you are entirely mistaken. (The 
doctor all the while stirring the sugar in his cup. ) 
I think the printing-press is a mighty agency 
for the world's betterment. If I were not a 
minister, I would be an editor. There are Bohem- 
ians in the newspaper profession, as in all others, 
but do not denounce the entire apostleship for the 
sake of one Judas. Reporters, as I know them, 
are clever fellows, worked almost to death, com- 
pelled to keep unseasonable hours, and have temp- 
tations to fight which few other occupations endure. 
Considering the blunders and indistinctness of 
the public speaker, I think they get things won- 
derfully accurate. The speaker murders the king's 
English, and is mad because the reporter cannot 
resuscitate the corpse. I once made a speech at 



A Groiider Soothed. 29 

an ice-cream festival amid great embarrassments, 
and hemmed, and hawed, and expectorated cotton 
from my dry mouth, and sweat like a Turkish 
bath, the adjectives, and the nouns, and verbs, 
and prepositions of my address keeping an Irish 
wake; but the next day, in the * Johnstown 
Advocate, ' my remarks read as gracefully as 
Addison's ^Spectator.' I knew a phonograph er 
in Washington whose entire business it was to 
w^eed out from Congressmen's sj)eeches the sins 
against Anglo-Saxon ; but the w^ork w^as too much 
for him, and he died of delirium tremens, from 
having drank too much of the wine of syntax, in 
his ravings imagining that 'interrogations' were 
crawling over him like snakes, and that -inter- 
jections' were thrusting him through with daggers 
and 'periods' struck liim like bullets, and his 
body seemed torn apart by disjunctive conjunc- 
tions. No, Mr. Givemlits, you are too hard. And 
as to the book-critics whom you condemn, they 
do more for the circulation of books than any other 
class, especia^lly if they denounce and caricature, for 
then human nature will see the book at any price. 
After I had published my book on ' The Philoso- 
phy of Civilization, ' it w^as so badgered by the 
critics and called so many hard names that my 
publishers could not print it fast enough to meet 
the demands of the curious. Besides, what would 
w^e do W'ithout the new^spaper? With the iron 
rake of the telegraph it draws the whole w^orld to 
our door every morning. The sermon that the 
minister preached to five hundred people on Sab- 
bath the newspaper next day preaches to fifty 
thousand. It takes the verses which the poet 
chimed in his small room of ten feet by six, and 
rings them into the ears of the continent. The 
cylinder of the printing-press is to be one of the 
wheels of the Lord's chariot. The good news- 
papers will overcome the bad ones, and the 



30 Around the Tea-table, 

honey-bees will outnumber the hornets. Instead 
©f the three or four religions newspapers that 
once lived on gruel and pap, sitting down once a 
week on some good man's door-step to rest, thank- 
ful if not kicked off, now many of the denomina- 
tions have stalwart journals that swing their 
scythe through the sins of the world, and are 
avant couriers of the Lord's coming." 

As Dr. Butterfield concluded this sentence his 
face shone like a harvest moon. We had all 
dropped our knives, and were looking at him. 
The Young Hyson tea was having its mollifying 
effect on the whole company. Mr, Givemfits had 
made way with his fourth cup (they were small 
cups, the set we use for company), and he was 
entirely soothed and moderated in his opinions 
about everything, and actually clapped his hands 
at Dr. Butterfield 's peroration. Even Miss Stinger 
was in a glow, for she had drank large quantities 
of the fragrant beverage while piping hot, and in 
her delight she took Givemfits' arm, and asked 
him if he ever meant to get married. Miss Smiley 
smiled. Then Dr. Butterfield lifted his cup, and 
proposed a toast which we all drank standing: 
* ' The mission of the printing-press ! The salubrity 
of the climate ! The prospects ahead I The won- 
ders of Oolong and Young Hyson 1 ' ' 



CHAPTER IV. 
CAELO AND THE FREEZER. 

We had a jolly time at our tea-table this even- 
ing. We had not seen our old friend for ten 
years. When I heard his voice in the hall, it 
seemed like a snatch of ^'Auld Lang Syne." He 
came from Belleville, where was the first home 
we ever set up for ourselves. It was a stormy 
evening, and we did not expect company, but we 
soon made way for him at the table. Jennie was 
very willing to stand up at the corner ; and after 
a fair napkin had been thrown over the place 
where she had dropped a speck of jelly, our 
friend and I began the rehearsal of other days. 
While I was alluding to a circumstance that 
occurred between me and one of my Bellevill© 
neighbors the children cried out with stentorian 
voice, "Tell us about Carlo and the freezer;'^ 
and they kicked the leg of the table, and beat 
with both hands, and clattered the knives on the 
plate, until I was compelled to shout, "Silence! 
You act like a band of Arabs ! Frank, you had 
better swallow what you have in your mouth 
before you attempt to talk. ' ' Order having been 
gained, I began : 

We sat in the country parsonage, on a cold 
winter day, looking out of our back window 
toward the house of a neighbor. She was a model 
of kindness, and a most convenient neighbor to 
have. It was a rule between us that when either 
house was in want of anything it should borrow 
of the other. The rule worked well for the par- 
sonage, but rather badly for the neighbor, because 
on our side of the fence we had just begun i& 

31 



32 Around the Tea-table, 

keep house, and needed to borrow everything, 
while we had nothing to lend, except a few ser- 
mons, which the neighbor nev^r tried to borrow, 
from the fact that she had enough of them on 
Sundays. There is no danger that your neighbor 
will burn a hole in your new brass kettle if you 
have none to lend. It will excite no surprise to 
say that we had an interest in all that happened 
on the other side of the parsonage fence, and that 
any injury inflicted on so kind a woman would 
rouse our sympathy. 

On the wintry morning of which we speak our 
neighbor had been making ice-cream ; but there 
being some defect in the machinery, the cream 
bad not sufficiently congealed, and so she set the 
can of the freezer containing the luxury on her 
back steps, expecting the cold air would com- 
pletely harden it. What was our dismay to see 
that our dog Carlo, on whose early education we 
were expending great care, had taken upon him- 
self the office of ice-cream inspector, and was 
actually busy with the freezer! We hoisted the 
window and shouted at him, but his mind was so 
absorbed in his undertaking he did not stop to 
listen. Carlo was a greyhound, thin, gaunt and 
long-nosed, and he was already making his way 
on down toward the bottom of the can. His eyes 
and all his head had disappeared in the depths 
of the freezer. Indeed, he was so far submerged 
that when he heard us, with quick and infuriate 
pace, coming up close behind him, he could not 
get his head out, and so started with the encum- 
brance on his head, in what direction he knew 
not. No dog was ever in a more embarrassing 
position — freezer to the right of him, freezer to 
the left of him, freezer on the top of him, freezer 
under him. 

So, thoroughly blinded, he rushed against the 
Cencp then against the side of the house, then 



Carlo and the Freezer, 33 

against a tree. He barked as though he thought 
he might explode the nuisance with loud sound, 
but the sound was confined in so strange a speak- 
ing-trumpet that he could not have known his 
own voice. His way seemed hedged up. Fright 
and anger and remorse and shame whirled him 
about without mercy. 

A feeling of mirthfulness, which sometimes 
takes me on most inappropriate occasions, seized 
me, and I sat down on the ground, powerless at 
the moment when Carlo most needed help. If I 
only could have got near enough, I would have 
put my foot on the freezer, and, taking hold of 
the dog's tail, dislodged him instantly; but this I 
was not permitted to do. At this stage of the 
disaster my neighbor appeared with a look of 
consternation, her cap-strings flying in the cold 
wind. I tried to explain, but the aforesaid un- 
timely hilarity hindered me. All I could do was 
to point at the flying freezer and the adjoining 
dog and ask her to call off her freezer, and, with 
assumed indignation, demand what she meant by 
1/ying to kill my greyhound. 

The poor dog's every attempt at escape only 
wedged himself more thoroughly fast. But after 
2i while, in time to save the dog, though not to 
save the ice-cream, my neighbor and myself 
effected a rescue. Edwin Landseer, the great 
painter of dogs and their friends, missed his best 
chance by not being there when the parishioner 
took hold of the freezer and the pastor seized the 
dog's tail, and, pulling mightily in opposite 
directions, they each got possession of their own 
property. 

Carlo was cured of his love for luxuries, and 
the sight of the freezer on the back steps till the 
day of his death w^ould send him howling away. 

Carlo found, as many people have found, that 
it is easier to get into trouble than to get out. 



34 Around the Tea-table, 

Nothing could be more delicious than while he 
was eating his way in, but what must have been 
his feelings when he found it impossible to get 
out ! While he was stealing the freezer the freezer 
stole him. 

Lesson for dogs and men! ''Come in!" says 
the gray spider to the house-fly; ''I have enter- 
tained a great many flies. I have plenty of room, 
fine meals and a gay life. Walk on this suspen- 
sion bridge. Give me your hand. Come in, my 
sweet lady fly. These walls are covered with silk, 
and the tapestry is gobelin. I am a wonderful 
creature. I have eight eyes, and of course can 
see your best interest. Philosophers have w^ritten 
volumes about my antennae and cephalothorax. ' ' 
House-fly walks gently in. The web rocks like 
a cradle in the breeze. The house-fly feels 
honored to be the guest of such a big spider. 
We all have regard for big bugs. ''But what is> 
this?" cries the fly, pointing to a broken wing, 
"and this fragment of an insect's foot. There 
must have been a murder here ! Let me go back ! ' ' 
"Ha! ha!" says the spider, "the gate is locked, 
the drawbridge is up. I only contracted to bring 
you in. I cannot afford to let you out. Take a 
drop of this poison, and it will quiet your nerves. 
1 throw this hook of a fang over your neck to- 
keep you from failing off. ' ' Word went back to- 
the house-fly's family, and a choir of great green- 
bottled insects sang this psalm at the funeral: 
"An unfortunate fly a-visiting went, 
And in a gossamer web found himself pent. " 
The first five years of a dissipated life are com- 
paratively easy, for it is all down hill ; but when 
the man wakes up and finds his tongue wound 
with blasphemies, and his eyes swimming in 
rheum, and the antennae of vice feeling along 
his nerves, and the spiderish poison eating 
through his very life, and, he resolves to retm^n^ 



Carlo a?id the Freezer, 35 

he finds it hard traveling, for it is up hill, and 
the fortresses along the road open on him their 
batteries. We go into sin, hop, skip and jump; 
we come out of it creeping on all fours. 

Let flies and dogs and men keep out of mis- 
chief. It is smooth all the way there, and rough- 
all the way back. It is ice-cream for Carlo clear 
down to the bottom of the can, but afterward it 
is blinded eyes and sore neck and great fright. 
It is only eighteen inches to go into the freezer; 
it is three miles out. For Robert Burns it is rich 
wine and clapping hands and carnival all the way- 
going to Edinburgh ; but going back, it is worn- 
out body, and lost estate, and stinging conscience, 
and broken heart, and a drunkpvrd's grave. 

Better moderate our desires. Carlo had that 
morning as good a breakfast as any dog need to- 
have. It was a law of the household that he 
should be well fed. Had he been satisfied with 
bread and meat, all would have been well. But 
he sauntered out for luxuries. He wanted ice- 
cream. He got it, but brought upon his head 
the perils and damages of which I have written. 
As long as we have reasonable wants we get on 
comfortably, but it is the struggle after luxuries 
that fills society with distress, and popuiates- 
prisons, and sends hundreds of people stark mad. 
Dissatisfied with a plain house, and ordinary 
apparel, and respectable surroundings, they plunge 
their head into enterprises and speculations from 
which they have to sneak out in disgrace. Thou- 
sands of men have sacrificed honor and religion 
for luxuries, and died with the freezer a])out 
their ears. 

Young Catchem has one horse, but wants six. 
Lives in a nice house on Thirtieth street, but 
wants one on Madison Square. Has one beauti- 
ful wife, but wants four. Owns a hundred thou- 
sand dollars of Erie stock, but wants a million^ 



36 Around the Tea-table, 

Plunges his head into schemes of all sorts, eats 
his way to the bottom of the can till he cannot 
extricate himself, and constables, and sheriifs, 
and indignant society, which would have said 
nothing had he been successful, go to pounding 
him because he cannot get his head out. 

Our poor old Carlo is dead now. We all cried 
when we found that he would never frisk again 
at our coming, nor put up his paw against us. 
But he lived long enough to preach the sermon 
about caution and contentment of which I have 
been the stenographer. 



CHAPTER V. 
OLD GAMES EEPEATED. 

We tarried longer in the dining-room this 
evening than usual, and the children, losing their 
interest in what we were saying got to playing all 
about us in a very boisterous w^ay, but we said 
nothing, for it is the evening hour, and I think 
it keeps one fresh to have these things going on 
around us. Indeed, we never get over being- 
boys and girls. The good, healthy man sixty 
years of age is only a boy with added experience. 
A woman is only an old girl. Summer is bat an 
older spring. August is May in its teens. We- 
shall be useful in proportion as we keep young in. 
our feelings. There is no use for fossils except 
in museums and on the shelf. I like young old 
folks. 

Indeed, we all keep doing over what we did in 
childhood. You thought that long ago you got 
through with ^'blind-man's-buff," and ^'hide- 
and-seek, " and "puss in the corner, '^ and "tick- 
tack- to, "and "leap-frog," but all our lives are 
passed in playing those old games over again. 

You say, ' ' What a racket those children make 
in the other room ! When Squire Jones' boys 
come over to spend the evening with our children, 
it seems as if they would tear the house down. ' ^ 
"Father, be patient!" the wife says; "we 
once played ^blind-man's-buflf' ourselves." Sure 
enough, father is playing it now, if he only knew 
it. Much of our time in life we go about blind- 
folded, stumbling over mistakes, trying to catch 
things that we miss, w^hile people stand round the 
ring and titter, and break out with half- suppressed 

37 



38 Around the Tea-table. 

laughter, and push us ahead, and twitch the 
corner of our eye-bandage. After a while we 
vehemently clutch something with both hands, 
and announce to the world our capture ; the blind- 
fold is taken from our eyes, and, amid the shouts 
of the surrounding spectators, w^e find we have, 
after all, caught the wrong thing. What is that 
but *' blind-man's buff" over again? 

You say, *^ Jenny and Harry, go to bed. It 
seems so silly for you to sit there making two 
parallel lines perpendicular, and two parallel lines 
horizontal, and filling up the blanks with crosses 
and o's, and then crying out ^ tick-tack-to. ' '* 
My dear man, you are doing every day in busi- 
ness just what your children are doing in the 
nursery. You find it hard to get things into a 
line. You have started out for worldly suc- 
cess. You get one or two things fixed but that 
is not what you want. After a while you have 
had two fine successes. You say, ' ' If I can have 
a third success, I will come out ahead. ' ' But 
somebody is busy on the same slate, trying to 
hinder you getting the game. You mark; he 
marks. I think you will win. To the first and 
second success which you have already gained 
you add the third, for which you have long been 
seeking. The game is yours, and you clap your 
hands, and hunch your opponent in the side, and 
shout, 

''Tick-tack-to, 
Three in a row. ' ' 

The funniest play that I ever joined in at school, 
and one that sets me a-laughing now as I think 
of it so I can hardly write, is ' ' leap-frog. ' \ It is 
unartistic and homely. It is so humiliating to 
the boy who bends himself over and puts his 
hands down on his knees, and it is so perilous to 
the boy who, placing his hands on the stooped 



Old Games Repeated, 39 

shoulders, attempts to flyover. But I always pre- 
ferred the risk of the one who attempted the leap 
rather than the humiliation of the one w^ho con- 
sented to be vaulted over. It was often the case 
that we both failed in our part and we went down 
together. For this Jack Snyder carried a grudge 
against me and would not speak, because he said 
I pushed him down a-purpose. But I hope he 
has forgiven me by this time, for he has been 
out as a missionary. Indeed, if Jack will come 
this way, I will right the wrong of olden time by 
stooping down in my study and letting him spring 
over me as my children do. 

Almost every autumn I see that old-time school- 
boy feat repeated. Mr. So-and-so says, *'You 
make me governor and I will see that you get to 
be senator. Make me mayor and I will see that 
you become assessor. Get me the office of street- 
sweeper and you shall have one of the brooms. 
You stoop down and let me jump over you, and 
then I will stoop down and let you jump over me. 
lElect me deacon and you shall be trustee. You 
write a good thing about me and I w411 WTite a 
good thing about you. ' ' The day of election in 
Church or State arrives. A man once very up- 
right in his principles and policy begins to bend. 
You cannot understand it. He goes down lower 
and lower, until he gets his hands aw^ay down on 
his knees. Then a spry politician or ecclesiastic 
€omes up behind him, puts his hand on the bowed 
strategist and springs clear over into some great 
position. Good thing to have so good a man in 
a prominent place. But after a while he himself 
begins to bend. Everybody says, ''What is the 
matter now? It cannot be possible that he is going 
down too. ' ' Oh yes ! Turn-about is fair play. 
Jack Snyder holds it against me to this day, be- 
•cause, after he had stooped down to let me leap 
over him, I would not stoop down to let him leap 



40 Aro7i7id the Tea-table, 

over me. One half the strange things in Church 
and State may be accounted for by the fact that, 
ever since Adam bowed down so low as to let 
the race, putting its hands on him, fly over into 
ruin, there has been a universal and perpetual 
tendency to political and ecclesiastical ''leap- 
frog. ' ' In one sense, life is a great ' ' game of 
ball. ' ' We all choose sides and gather into 
denominational and political parties. We take 
our places on the ball ground. Some are to pitch ; 
they are the radicals. Some are to catch ; they 
are the conservatives. Some are to strike ; they 
are those fond of polemics and battle. Some are 
to run ; they are the candidates. There are four 
hunks — youth, manhood, old age and death. 
Some one takes the bat, lifts it and strikes for 
the prize and misses it, while the man who was 
behind catches it and goes in. This man takes 
his turn at the bat, sees the flj^ing ball of success, 
takes good aim and strikes it high, amid the 
clapping of all the spectators. We all have a 
chance at the ball. Some of us run to all the four 
hunks, from youth to manhood, from manhood 
to old age, from old age to death. At the first 
hunk we bound with uncontrollable mirth ; com- 
ing to the second, we run with a slower but 
stronger tread ; coming to the third, our step is 
feeble ; coming to the fourth, our breath entirely 
gives out. We throw down the bat on the black 
hunk of death, and in the evening catchers and 
pitchers go home to find the family gathered and 
the food prepared. So may we all find the candles 
lighted, and the table set, and the old folks at 
home. 



CHAPTER VI. 
THE FULL-BLOODED COW. 

We never had any one drop in about six o'clock 
p. m. whom we were more glad to see than Field- 
ing, the Orange County fanner. In the first 
place, he always had a good appetite, and it did 
not make much difference w^hat we had to eat. 
He would not nibble about the end of a piece of 
bread, undecided as to whether he had better 
take it, nor sit sipping his tea as though the 
doctor'had ordered him to take only ten drops at 
a time, mixed with a little sugar and hot water. 
Perpetual contact with fresh air and the fields 
and the mountains gave him a healthy body, 
while the religion that he learned in the little 
church down by the mill-dam kept him in healthy 
spirits. Fielding keeps a great drove of cattle 
and has an overflowing dairy. As we handed him^ 
the cheese he said, ''I really believe this is of my 
own making." ^'Fielding," I inquired," how 
does your dairy thrive, and have you any new 
stock on your farm? Come give us a little touch 
of the country. ' ' He gave me a mischievous look 
and said, ^'1 will not tell you a word until you 
let me know^ all about that full-blooded cow, of 
which I have heard something. You need not 
try to hide that story any longer. " So we yielded 
to his coaxing. It was about like this : 

The man had not been able to pay his debts. 
The mortgage on the farm had been foreclosed. 
Day of sale had come. The sheriff stood on a 
box reading the terms of vendue. All payments 
to be made in six months. The auctioneer took 
his place. The old man and his wife and the 

41 



42 Around the Tea-table, 

children all cried as the piano, and the chairs, 
and the pictures, and the carpets, and the bed- 
steads went at half their worth. When the piano 
went, it seemed to the old people as if the sheriff 
were selling all the fingers that had ever played 
on it ; and when the carpets were struck off', I 
think father and mother thought of the little 
feet that had tramped it ; and when the bedstead 
was sold, it brought to mind the bright, curly 
heads that had slept on it long before the dark 
'days had come, and father had put his name on 
the back of a note, signing his own death war- 
rant. The next thing to being buried alive is to 
have the sheriff sell you out when you have been 
honest and have tried always to do right. There 
are so many envious ones to chuckle at your fall, 
and come in to buy your carriage, blessing the 
Lord that the time has come for you to walk 
and for them to ride. 

But to us the auction reached its climax of 
interest when we went to the barn. We were 
spending our summers in the country, and must 
have a cow. There were ten or fifteen sukies 
to be sold. There were reds, and piebalds, and 
duns, and browns, and brindles, short horns, 
long horns, crumpled horns and no horns. But 
we marked for our own a cow that was said to 
be full-blooded, whether Alderney, or Durham, 
or Galloway, or Ayrshire, I will not tell lest some 
cattle fancier feel insulted by what I say ; and if 
there ife any grace that I pride myself on, it is 
prudence and a determination always to say 
smooth things. ^'How much is bid for this 
magnificent, full-blooded cow?' ' cried the auction- 
eer. "Seventy-five dollars," shouted some one. 
I made it eighty. He made it ninety. Some- 
body else quickly made it a hundred. After the 
bids had risen to one hundred and twenty-five 
dollars, I got animated, and resolved that I would 



The Full-blooded Cow. 43 

have that cow if it took my last cent. ^'One 
hundred and forty dollars, ' ' shouted my opponent. 
The auctioneer said it was the finest cow he had 
ever sold ; and not knowing much about vendues, 
of course I believed him. It was a good deal of 
money for a minister to pay, but then I could 
get the whole matter off my hands by giving ''a 
note. ' ' In utter defiance of everything I cried 
out, ''One hundred and fifty dollars!" "Going 
at that, ' ' said the auctioneer. ' ' Going at that ! 
once ! twice ! three times ! gone I Mr. Talmage 
has it. ' ' It was one of the proudest moments of 
our life. There she stood, tall, immense in the 
girth, horns branching graceful as a tree branch, 
full-uddered, silk-coated, pensive-eyed. 

We hired two boys to drive her home while we 
rode in a carriage. No sooner had w^e started 
than the cow showed what turned out to be one 
of her peculiarities, great speed of hoof. She 
left the boys, outran my horse, jumped the fence, 
frightened nearly to death a group of school- 
children, and by the time we got home w^e all 
felt as if we had all day been out on a fox-chase. 

We never had any peace with that cow\ She 
knew more tricks than a juggler. She could let 
down any bars, open any gate, outrun any dog 
and ruin the patience of any minister. We had 
her a year, and yet she never got over w^anting to 
go to the vendue. Once started out of the yard, 
she was bound to see the sheriff. We coaxed 
her with carrots, and apples, and cabbage, and 
sweetest stalks, and the richest beverage of slops, 
but without avail. 

As a milker she was a failure. "Mike, "^ who 
lived just back of our place, would come in at 
nights from his "Kerry cow," a scraggly runt 
that lived on the commons, with his pail so full 
he had to carry it cautiously lest it spill over. 
But after our full-blooded had been in clover to 



44 Around the Tea-table, 

her eyes all day, Bridget would go out to the barn- 
yard, and tug and pull for a supply enough to 
make two or three custards. I said, '^Bridget, 
you don't know how to milk. Let me try. " I sat 
down by the cow, tried the full force of dynamics, 
but just at the moment when my success was 
about to be demonstrated, a sudden thought took 
her somewhere between the horns, and she started 
for the vendue, with one stroke of her back foot 
upsetting the small treasure I had accumulated, 
and leaving me a mere wreck of what I once w^as. 

She had, among other bad things, a morbid 
appetite. Notwithstanding we gave her the richest 
herbaceous diet, she ate everything she could put 
her mouth on. She was fond of horse blankets 
and articles of human clothing. I found her one 
day at the clothes line, nearly choked to death, 
for she had swallowed one leg of something and 
seemed dissatisfied that she could not get down 
the other. The most perfect nuisance that I ever 
had about my place was that full-blooded. 

Having read in our agricultural journals of 
cows that were slaughtered yielding fourteen hun- 
dred pounds neat weight, we concluded to sell 
her to the butcher. We set a high price upon her 
and got it — that is, we took a note for it, which 
is the same thing. My bargain with the butcher 
was the only successful chapter in my bovine 
experiences. The only taking-off in the whole 
transaction was that the butcher ran away, leav- 
ing me nothing but a specimen of poor chirog- 
raphy, and I already had enough of that among 
my manuscripts. 

My friend, never depend on high-breeds. Some 
of the most useless of cattle had ancestors spoken 
of in the ' ^ Commentaries of Caesar. ' ' That 
Alderney whose grandfather used to graze on a 
lord's park in England may not be worth the 
grass she eats. 



The Full-blooded Cozv. 45 

Do not depend too much on the high-sounding 
name of Durham or Devon. As with animals, 
so with men. Only one President ever had a 
President for a son. Let every cow make her 
own name, and every man achieve his own 
position. It is no great credit to a fool that he 
had a wise grandfather. Many an Ayrshire and 
Hereford has had the hollow-horn and the foot- 
rot. Both man and animal are valuable in pro- 
portion as they are useful. ** Mike's' ' cow beat 
my full-blooded. 



CHAPTER VII. 
THE DEEGS IN LEATHERBACKS' TEA-CUR 

We have an earlier tea this evening than 
usual, for we have a literary friend who comes 
about this time of the week, and he must go 
home to retire about eight o'clock. His nervous 
system is so weak that he must get three or four 
hours sleep before midnight; otherwise he is 
next day so cross and censorious he scalps every 
author he can lay his hand on. As he put his 
hand on the table with an indelible blot of ink 
on his thumb and two fingers, which blot he had 
not been able to wash ofi", I said, ' ' Well, my old 
friend Leatherbacks, what books have you been 
reading to-day?'' 

He replied, ^^I have been reading 'Men and 
Things. ' Some books touch only the head and 
make us think ; other books touch only the heart 
and make us feel; here and there one touches 
us under the fifth rib and makes us laugh ; but 
the book on ' Men and Things, ' by the Rev. Dr> 
C S. Henry, touched me all over. I have felt 
better ever since. I have not seen the author but 
once since the old university days, when he 
lectured us and pruned us and advised us and 
did us more good than almost any other instructor 
we ever had. Oh, those were grand days! No 
better than the present, for life grows brighter to 
me all the time; but we shall not forget the 
quaint, strong, brusque professor who so uncere- 
moniously smashed things which he did not 
like, and shook the class with merriment or 
indignation. The widest awake professorial room 
in the land was Dr. Henry's, in the New York 

46 



The Dregs in Leatherbacks' Tea-cup. 47 

University. But the participators in those scene& 
are all scattered. I know the whereabouts of 
but three or four. So we meet for a little while 
on earth, and then we separate. There must be 
a better place somewhere ahead of us. 

'*I have also been looking over a book that 
overhauls the theology and moral character of 
Abraham Lincoln. This is the only kind of 
slander that is safe. I have read all the stuff for 
the last three years published about Abraham 
Lincoln's unfair courtships and blank infidelity. 
The protracted discussion has made only one- 
impression upon me, and that is this : How safe 
it is to slander a dead man ! You may say what 
you will in print about him, he brings no rebut- 
ting evidence. I have heard that ghosts do a 
great many things, but I never heard of one as 
printing a book or editing a newspaper to vindi- 
cate himself. Look out how you vilify a living 
man, for he may respond with pen, or tongue, 
or cowhide ; but only get a man thoroughly dead 
(that is, so certified by the coroner) and have a 
good, heavy tombstone put on the top of him, 
and then you may say what you will with 
impunity. 

'^But I have read somewhere in an old book 
that there is a day coming when all wrongs will 
be righted ; and I should not wonder if then the 
dead were vindicated, and all the swine who have 
uprooted graveyards should, like their ancestors 
of Gadara, run down a steep place into the sea 
and get choked. The fact that there are now alive 
men so debauched of mind and soul that they 
rejoice in mauling the reputation of those who 
spent their lives in illustrious achievement for 
God and their country, and then died as martyrs 
for their principles, makes me believe in eternal 
damnation. ' ' 

With this last sentence my friend Leather- 



48 Around the Tea-table. 

backs gave a violent gesture that upset his cup 
and left the table-cloth sopping wet. 

* * By the way, ' ' said he, ^ ' have you heard that 
Odger is coming?" 

*°What!" said I. He continued without look- 
ing up, for he was at that moment running his 
knife, not over-sharp, through a lamb-chop made 
out of old sheep. (Wife, we will have to change 
our butcher!) He continued with a severity 
perhaps partly caused by the obstinacy of the 
meat: ''I see in the ^Pall-Mall Budget' the 
startling intelligence that Mr. Odger is coming to 
the United States on a lecturing expedition. Our 
American newspapers do not seem, as yet, to have 
got hold of this news, but the tidings will soon 
fly, and great excitement may be expected to 
follow." 

Some unwise person might ask the foolish 
question, '^Who is Odger?" I hope, however, 
that such inquiry will not be made, for I would 
be compelled to say that I do not know. Whether 
he is a clergyman or a reformer, or an author, or 
all these in one, we cannot say. Suffice it he is 
a foreigner, and that is enough to make us all go 
wild. A foreigner does not need more than half 
as much brain or heart to do twice as well as an 
American, either at preaching or lecturing. There 
is for many Americans a bew^itchment in a foreign 
brogue. I do not know but that he may have 
dined with the queen, or have a few drops of 
lordly blood distributed through his arteries. 

I notice, however, that much of this charm has 
been broken. I used to think that all English 
lords were talented, till I heard one of them make 
the only poor speech that was made at the open- 
ing meeting of the Evangelical Alliance. Our 
lecturing committees would not pay very large 
prices next year for Mr. Bradlaugh and Edmund 
Tates. Indeed, we expect that the time will 



Hie Dregs in Leatherbacks' Tea-cup, 49 

soon come when the same kind of balances will 
weigh Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, French- 
men and Americans. 

If a man can do anything well, he will be 
acceptable without reference to whether he was 
born by the Clyde, the Thames, the Seine, or 
the Hudson. But until those scales be lifted it 
is sufficient to announce the joyful tidings that 
* * Odger is coming, ' ' 



CHAPTER VIII. 
THE HOT AXLE. 

The express train was flying from Cork to 
Queenstown. It was going like sixty — that is, 
about sixty miles an hour. No sight of an Irish 
village to arrest our speed, no sign of break-down, 
and yet the train halted. We looked out of the 
window, saw the brakemen and a crowd of pas- 
sengers gathering around the locomotive and a 
dense smoke arising. What was the matter? 
A hot axle ! 

W^e were on the lightning train for Cleveland. 
We had no time to spare. If we stopped for a 
half hour we should be greeted by the anathema 
of a lecturing committee. We felt a sort of presenti- 
ment that we should be too late, when to con- 
firm it the whistle blew, and the brakes fell, and 
the cry all along the train was, ^'What is the 
matter?" Answer: ^^A hot axle!" The wheels 
had been making too many revolutions in a 
minute. The car was on fire. It was a very 
difiicult thing to put it out; water, sand and 
swabs were tried, and caused long detention and 
a smoke that threatened flame down to the end 
of the journey. 

We thought then, and think now, this is what 
is the matter with people everywhere. In this 
swift, '^express," American life, we go too fast 
for our endurance. We think ourselves getting 
on splendidly, when in the midst of our successes 
we come to a dead halt. What is the matter? 
Nerves or muscles or brains give out. We have 
made too many revolutions in an hour. A hot 
axle! 

50 



The Hot Axle, 51: 

Men make the mistake of working according to* 
their opportunities, and not according to their 
capacity of endurance. ''Can I run this train 
from Springfield to Boston at the rate of fifty 
miles an hour?" says an engineer. Yes. ''Then 
I will run it reckless of consequences. ' ' Can I 
be a merchant, and the president of a bank, and 
a director in a life insurance company, and a 
school commissioner, and help edit a paper, and 
supervise the politics of our ward, and run for 
Congress? "I can!" the man says to himself. 
The store drives him ; the school drives him ; 
politics drive him. He takes all the scoldings 
and frets and exasperations of each position. 
Some day at the height of the business season he 
does not come to the store ; from the most im- 
portant meetings of the bank directors he is 
absent. In the excitements of the political can- 
vass he fails to be at the place appointed. What 
is the matter? His health has broken down. 
The train halts long before it gets to the station.. 
A hot axle ! 

Literary men have great opportunities opening 
in this day. If they take all that open, they are 
dead men, or worse, living men who ought to be 
dead. The pen runs so easy when you have good 
ink, and smooth paper, and an easy desk to write 
on, and the consciousness of an audience of one, 
two or three hundred thousand readers. There 
are the religious newspapers through which you 
preach, and the musical journals through which 
you may sing, and the agricultural periodicals 
through which you can plough, and family news- 
papers in which you may romp with the whole 
household around the evening stand. There are 
critiques to be written, and reviews to be in- 
dulged in, and poems to be chimed, and novels 
to be constructed. When out of a man's pen he 
can shake recreation, and friendship, and use- 



52 Around the Tea-table, 

fulness, and bread, he is apt to keep it shaking. 
So great are the invitations to literary work that 
the professional men of the day are overcome. 
They sit faint and fagged out on the verge of 
newspapers and books. Each one does the work 
of three, and these men sit up late nights, and 
choke down chunks of meat without mastication, 
and scold their wives through irritability, and 
maul innocent authors, and run the physical 
machinery with a liver miserably given out. The 
driving shaft has gone fifty times a second. 
They stop at no station. The steam-chest is hot 
and swollen. The brain and the digestion begin 
to smoke. Stop, ye flying quills ! ^ ' Down brakes 1 ' ' 
A hot axle ! 

Some of the worst tempered people of the day 
are religious people, from the fact that they have 
no rest. Added to the necessary work of the 
world, they superintend two Sunday-schools, listen 
to two sermons, and every night have meetings 
of charitable and Christian institutions. They 
look after the beggars, hold conventions, speak 
at meetings, wait on ministers, serve as committee- 
men, take all the hypercriticisms that inevitably 
come to earnest workers, rush up and down the 
world and develop their hearts at the expense of 
all the other functions. They are the best men 
on earth, and Satan knows it, and is trying to 
kill them as fast as possible. They know not 
that it is as much a duty to take care of their 
health as to go to the sacrament. It is as much 
a sin to commit suicide with the sword of truth 
as with a pistol. 

Our earthly life is a treasure to be guarded. It 
is an outrageous thing to die when we ought to 
live. There is no use in firing up a Cunarder to 
such a speed that the boiler bursts mid- Atlantic, 
when at a more moderate rate it might have 
reached the docks at Liverpool. It is a sin to 



The Hot Axle, 53 

try to do the work of thirty years in five 
years. 

A Kocky Mountain locomotive engineer told us 
that at certain places they change locomotives and 
let the machine rest, as a locomotive always kept 
in full heat soon got out of order. Our advice to- 
all overworked good people is, "Slow up!'^ 
Slacken your speed as you come to the crossings. 
All your faculties for work at this rate w^ill be 
consumed. You are on fire now — see the pre- 
monitory smoke. A hot axle ! 

Some of our young people have read till they 
are crazed of learned blacksmiths who at the forge 
conquered thirty languages, and of shoemakers 
who, pounding sole-leather, got to be philosophers, 
and of milliners who, while their customers w^ere 
at the glass trying on their spring hats, wTote a 
volume of first-rate poems. The fact is no black- 
smith ought to be troubled with more than five 
languages; and instead of shoemakers becoming 
philosophers, we would like to turn our surplus. 
of philosophers into shoemakers ; and the supply 
of poetry is so much greater than the demand that 
we w^ish milliners would stick to their business. 
Extraordinary examples of work and endurance 
may do as much harm as good. Because Napoleon 
slept only three hours a night, hundreds of 
students have tried the experiment; but instead 
of Austerlitz and Saragossa, there came of it only 
a sick headache and a botch of a recitation. We 
are told of how many books a man can read in 
the ^'^^ spare minutes before breakfast, and the 
ten minutes at noon, but I w^ish some one could 
tell us how much rest a man can get in fifteen 
minutes after dinner, or how much health in an 
hour's horseback ride, or how much fun in a 
Saturday afternoon of cricket. He who has such 
an idea of the value of time that he takes none 
of it for rest wastes all his time. 



54 Around the Tea-table, 

Most Americans do not take time for sufficient 
sleep. We account for our own extraordinary 
health by the fact that we are fanatics on the 
subject of sleep. We differ from our friend 
Napoleon Bonaparte in one respect : we want nine 
hours' sleep, and we take it — eight hours at night 
.and one hour in the day. If we miss our allow- 
ance one week, as we often do, we make it up 
the next week or the next month. We have 
•sometimes been twenty-one hours in arrearages. 
We formerly kept a memorandum of the hours 
for sleep lost. We pursued those hours till we 
•caught them. If at the beginning of our summer 
vacation w^e are many hours behind in slumber, 
we go down to the sea-shore or among the moun- 
tains and sleep a month. If the world abuses us 
at any time, we go and take an extra sleep ; and 
when we wake up, all the world is smiling on us. 
If we come to a knotty point in our discourse, 
we take a sleep ; and when we open our eyes, the 
opaque has become transparent. We split every 
day in two by a nap in the afternoon. Going to 
take that somniferous interstice, we say to the 
.servants, /^ Do not call me for anything. If the 
house takes fire, first get the children out and my 
private papers ; and when the roof begins to 
fall in call me. ' ' Through such fanaticism we 
have thus far escaped the hot axle. 

Somebody ought to be congratulated — I do not 
know who, and so I will shake hands all around 
— on the fact that the health of the country seems 
improving. Whether Dio Lewis, with his gym- 
nastic clubs, has pounded to death American sick- 
ness, or whether the coming here of many Eng- 
lish ladies with their magnificent pedestrian 
habits, or whether the medicines in the apothe- 
cary shops through much adulteration have lost 
their force, or whether the multiplication of bath- 
tubs has induced to cleanliness people who were 



The Hot Axle, 55 

never washed but once, and that just after their 
arrival on this planet, I cannot say. But sure I 
am that I never saw so many bright, healthy- 
faced people as of late. 

Our maidens have lost the languor they once 
cultivated, and walk the street with stout step, 
and swing the croquet mallet with a force that 
sends the ball through tw^o arches, cracking the 
opposing ball with great emphasis. Our daughters 
are not ashamed to culture flower beds, and while 
they plant the rose in the ground a corresponding 
rose blooms in their own cheek. 

But we need another proclamation of emancipa- 
tion. The human locomotive goes too fast. 
Cylinder, driving-boxes, rock-shaft, truck and 
valve-gear need to ' ^ slow up. ^ ' Oh ! that some 
strong hand would unloose the burdens from our 
over-tasked American life, that there might be 
fewer bent shoulders, and pale cheeks, and ex- 
hausted lungs, and quenched eyes, the law, and 
medicine, and theology less frequently stopped 
in their glorious progress, because of the hot 
axle! 



CHAPTER IX. 
BEEFSTEAK FOR MINISTERS. 

There have been lately several elaborate articles 
remarking upon what they call the lack of force 
and fire in the clergy. The world wonders that, 
with such a rousing theme as the gospel, and with 
such a grand work as saving souls, the ministry 
should ever be nerveless. Some ascribe it to lack 
of piety, and some to timidity of temperament. 
We believe that in a great number of cases it is 
from the lack of nourishing food. Many of the 
clerical brotherhood are on low diet. After 
jackets and sacks have been provided for the 
eight or ten children of the parsonage, the father 
and mother must watch the table with severest 
economy. Coming in suddenly upon the din- 
ner-hour of the country clergyman, the housewife 
apologizes for what she calls ^'a picked-up" din- 
ner, when, alas ! it is nearly always picked up. 

Congregations sometimes mourn over dull 
preaching when themselves are to blame. Give 
your minister more beefsteak and he will have 
more fire. Next to the divine unction, the 
minister needs blood ; and he cannot make that 
out of tough leather. One reason why the apostles 
preached so powerfully was that they had healthy 
food. Fish was cheap along Galilee, and this, 
with unbolted bread, gave them plenty of phos- 
phorus for brain food. These early ministers 
were never invited out to late suppers, with 
chicken salad and doughnuts. Nobody ever em- 
broidered slippers for the big foot of vSimon 
Peter, the fisherman preacher. Tea parties, with 
hot waffles, at ten o'clock at night, make namby- 

56 



Beefsteak for Min isters. 57 

pamby ministers ; but good hours and substantial 
diet, that furnish nitrates for the muscles, and 
phosphates for the brain, and carbonates for the- 
whole frame, prepare a man for effective work. 
When the water is low, the mill-wheel goes slow,; 
but a full race, and how fast the grists are ground I 
In a man the arteries are the mill-race and tha 
brain the wheel, and the practical work of life m 
the grist ground. The reason our soldiers failed 
in some of the battles was because their stomachs 
had for several days been innocent of everything- 
but ^'hard tack." See that your minister has a 
full haversack. Feed him on gruel during the- 
week and on Sunday he will give you gruel. 
What is called the "parson's nose" in a turkey 
or fowl is an allegory setting forth that in many 
communities the minister comes out behind. 

Eight hundred or a thousand dollars for a. 
minister is only a slow way of killing him, and 
is the worst style of homicide. Why do not the 
trustees and elders take a mallet or an axe, 
and with one blow put him out of his misery?' 
The damage begins in the college boarding house„ 
The theological student has generally small means^, 
and he must go to a cheap boarding house. A 
frail piece of sausage trying to swim across a river 
of gravy on the breakfast plate, but drowned at 
last, ''the linked sweetness long drawn out" of 
flies in the molasses cup, the gristle of a tough 
ox, and measly biscuit, and buckwheat cakes 
tough as the cook's apron, and old peas in which 
the bugs lost their life before they had time to 
escape from the saucepan, and stale cucumbers 
cut up into small slices of cholera morbus, — are 
the provender out of which we are trying at 
Princeton and Yale and New Brunswick to make 
sons of thunder. Sons of mush! From such- 
depletion we step gasping into the pulpit, and 
look so heavenly pale that the mothers in Israel 



58 Around the Tea-table, 

.are afraid we will evaporate before we get through 
€ur first sermon. 

Many of our best young men in preparation 
for the ministry are going through this martyr- 
dom. The strongest mind in our theological class 
perished, the doctors said afterward from lack 
of food. The only time he could afford a doctor 
was for his post-mortem examination. 

I give the financial condition of many of our 
young theological students when I say : 

Income $250 00 

Outgo : 

Board at $3 per week (cheap place) . . 156 00 

Clothing (shoddy) 100 00 

Books (no morocco) 25 00 

Traveling expenses 20 00 

Total $301 00 

Here you see a deficit of fifty-one dollars. As 
there are no ' ' stealings' ' in a theological seminary, 
he makes up the balance by selling books or 
teaching school. He comes into life cowed down, 
with a patch on both knees and several other 
places, and a hat that has been **done over'' four 
or five times, and so weak that the first sharp 
wind that whistles round the corner blows him 
into glory. The inertness you complain of in the 
iministry starts early. Do you suppose that if 
Paul had spent seven years in a cheap boarding 
house, and the years after in a poorly-supplied 
parsonage, he would have made Felix tremble? 
JN^o! The first glance of the Eoman procurator 
would have made him apologize for intrusion. 

Do not think that all your eight-hundred-dollar 
aninister needs is a Christmas present of an 
^legantly-boun I copy of *^ Calvin's Institutes." 
He is sound already on the doctrine of election, 
and it is a poor consolation if in this way you 



Beefsteak for Ministers, 59 

remind him that he has been foreordained ta 
starve to death. Keep your minister on artichokes 
and pursiain, and he will be fit to preach nothing 
but funeral sermons from the text ^'All flesh is 
grass. ' ' While feeling most of all our need of 
the life that comes from above, let us not ignore 
the fact that many of the clergy to-day need more 

fymnastics, more fresh air, more nutritious food, 
"rayer cannot do the work of beefsteak. You 
cannot keep a hot fire in the furnace with poor 
fuel and the damper turned. 



CHAPTER X. 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN OLD PAIE OF 

SCISSORS. 

I was born in Sheffield, England, at the close 
of the last century, and was, like all those who 
study Brown's Shorter Catechism, made out of 
dust. My father was killed at Herculaneum at 
the time of the accident there, and buried with 
other scissors and knives and hooks and swords. 
On my mother's side I am descended from a pair 
of shears that came to England during the Roman 
invasion. My cousin hung to tlie belt of a 
duchess. My uncle belonged to Hampton Court, 
and used to trim the king's hair. I came to the 
United States while the grandfathers of the present 
generation of children were boys. 

When I was young I was a gay fellow — indeed, 
what might have been called ' ' a perfect blade. ' ' 
I look old and rusty hanging here on the nail, 
but take me down, and though my voice is a little 
squeaky with old age, I can tell you a pretty tale. 
I am sharper than I look. Old scissors know 
more than you think. They say I am a little 
garrulous, and perhaps I may tell things I ought 
not. 

I helped your grandmother prepare for her 
wedding. I cut out and fitted all the apparel of 
that happy day. I hear her scold the young 
folks now for being so dressy, but I can tell you 
she was once that way herself. Did not I, sixty 
years ago, lie on the shelf and laugh as I saw 
ner stand by the half hour before the glass, giv- 
ing an extra twist to her curl and an additional 
dash of white powder on her hair — now fretted 

60 



An Old Pair of Scissors, 6 1 

because the powder was too thick, now fretted 
because it was too thin? She was as proud in 
cambric and calico and nankeen as Harriet is to- 
day in white tulle and organdy. I remember 
how careful she was when she ran me along the 
edges of the new dress. With me she clipped 
and notched and gored and trimmed, and day 
and night I went click ! click ! click ! and it 
seemed as if she would never let me rest from 
cutting. 

I split the rags for the first carpet on the old 
homestead, and what a merry time we had when 
the neighbors came to ' ' the quilting ! " I lay on 
the coverlet that was stretched across the quilt- 
ing-frame and heard all the gossip of 1799. 
Eeputations were ripped and torn just as they are 
now. Fashions were chattered about, the coal- 
scuttle bonnet of some ofiensive neighbor (who 
was not invited to the quilting) was criticised, 
and the suspicion started that she laced too tight; 
and an old man who happened to have the best 
farm in the county was overhauled for the size 
of his knee-buckles, and the exorbitant ruffles on 
his shirt, and the costly silk lace to his hat. I 
lay so still that no one supposed I was listening. 
I trembled on the coverlet with rage and wished 
that I could clip the end of their tattling tongues, 
but found no chance for revenge, till, in the hand 
of a careless neighbor, I notched and nearly 
spoiled the patch-work. 

Yes, I am a pair of old scissors. I cut out 
many a profile of old-time faces, and the white 
dimity bed curtains. I lay on the stand when 
vour grandparents were courting — for that had to 
be done then as well as now — and it was the 
same story of chairs wide apart, and chairs com- 
ing nearer, and arm over the back of the chair, 
and late hours, and four or five gettings up to go 
with the determination to stay, protracted inter- 



62 Around the Tea-table, 

views on the front steps, blushes and kisses. 
Your great-grandmother, out of patience at the 
lateness of the hour, shouted over the banister 
to your immediate grandmother, ^ ' Mary ! come 
to bed!'' Because the old people sit in the cor- 
ner looking so very grave, do not suppose their 
eyes were never roguish, nor their lips ruby, nor 
their hair flaxen, nor their feet spry, nor that 
they always retired at half -past eight o'clock at 
night. After a while, I, the scissors, was laid on 
the shelf, and finally thrown into a box among 
nails and screws and files. Years of darkness 
and disgrace for a scissors so highly born as I. 
But one day I was hauled out. A bell tinkled in 
the street. An Italian scissors-grinder wanted a 
job. I was put upon the stone, and the grinder 
put his foot upon the treadle, and the bands 
pulled, and the wheel sped, and the fire flew, and 
it seemed as if, in the heat and pressure and 
agony, I should die. I was ground, and rubbed, 
and oiled, and polished, till I glittered in the 
sun ; and one day, when young Harriet was 
preparing for the season, I plunged into the fray. 
I almost lost my senses among the ribbons, and 
flew up and down among the flounces, and went 
mad amongst the basques. I move round as gay 
as when I was young ; and modern scissors, with 
their stumpy ends, and loose pivots, and weak 
blades, and glaring bows, and course shanks, are 
stupid beside an old family piece like me. You 
would be surprised how spry I am flying around 
the sewing-room, cutting corsage into heart- shape, 
and slitting a place for button holes, and making 
double-breasted jackets, and hollowing scallops, 
and putting the last touches on velvet arabesques 
and Worth overskirts. I feel almost as well at 
eighty years of age as at ten, and I lie down to 
sleep at nisht amid all the fineries of the ward- 
robe, on olive-green cashmere, and beside 



An Old Pair of Scissor^, 63 

pannier puffs, and pillowed on feathers of 
ostrich. 

Oil! what a gay life the scissors live! I may 
lie on gayest lady's lap, and little children like 
me better than almost anything else to play with. 
The trembling octogenarian takes me by the hand, 
and the rollicking four-year-old puts on me his- 
dimpled fingers. Mine are the children's curls-- 
and the bride's veil. I am welcomed to the 
Christmas tree, and the sewing-machine, and the- 
editor's table. I have cut my way through the- 
ages. Beside pen, and sword, and needle, I dare- 
to stand anywhere, indispensable to the race, the 
world-renow'ued scissors ! 

But I had a sad mission once. The bell tolled 
in the New^ England village because a soul had 
passed. I sat up all the night cutting the pattern^ 
for a shroud. Oh, it w^as gloomy work. There 
was wailing in the house, but I could not stop to^ 
mourn. I had often made the swaddling-clothes 
for a child, but that was the only time I fashioned 
a robe for the grave. To fit it around the little 
neck, and make the sleeves just long enough for 
the quiet arms — it hurt me more than the tilt 
hammers that smote me in Sheffield, than the- 
files of the scissors-grinder at the door. I heard 
heart-strings snap as I w^ent through the linen, 
and in the white pleats to be folded over the- 
still heart I saw the snow banked on a grave. 
Give me, the old scissors, fifty bridal dresses to 
make rather than one shroud to prepare. 

I never recovered from the chill of those dis- 
mal days, but at the end of life I can look back 
and feel that I have done my work well. Other 
scissors have frayed and unraveled the garments 
they touched, but I have always made a clean 
path through the linen or the damask I was called 
to divide. Others screeched complainingly at 
their toil; I smoothly worked my jaws. Many^ 



^4 Around the Tea-table 

of the fingers that wrought with me have ceased 
to open and shut, and my own time will soon 
t^ome to die, and I shall be buried in a grave of 
rust amid cast-off tenpenny nails and horse-shoes. 
But I have stayed long enough to testify, first, 
that these days are no worse than the old ones, 
the granddaughter now no more proud than the 
.grandmother was; secondly, that we all need to 
be hammered and ground in order to take off the 
rust ; and thirdly, that an old scissors, as well as 
.an old man, may be scoured up and made practi- 
cally useful. 



CHAPTER XI. 
A LIE, ZOOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED. 

We stand agape in the British Museum, look- 
ing at the monstrous skeletons of the mastodon, 
megatherium and iguanodon, and conclude that 
ail the great animals thirty feet long and eleven 
feet high are extinct. 

Now, while we do not want to frighten children 
or disturb nervous people, we have to say that 
the other day we caught a glimpse of a monster 
beside which the lizards of the saurian era were 
short, and the elephants of the mammalian period 
were insignificant. We saw it in full spring, and 
on the track of its prey. Children would call 
the creature ' ' a fib ; " rough persons would term 
it "a whopper;" polite folks would say it was 
*'a fabrication;" but plain and unscientific peo- 
ple would style it "a lie." Naturalists might 
assign it to the species "Tigris regalis, " or ' ' Felis 
par d us. ' ' 

We do not think that anatomical and zoological 
justice has been done to the lie. It is to be 
found in all zones. Livingstone saw it in Cen- 
tral Africa; Dr. Kane found it on an iceberg, 
beside a polar bear; Agassiz discovered it in 
Brazil. It thrives about as well in one clime as 
another, with perhaps a little preference for the 
temperate zone. It lives on berries, or bananas, 
or corn, grapes, or artichokes; drinks water, or 
alcohol, or tea. It eats up a great many children, 
and would have destroyed the boy who afterward 
became the father of his country had he not 
driven it back with his hatchet. (See the last 
two hundred Sunday-school addresses. ) 

65 



66 Around the Tea-table. 

The first peculiarity of this Tigris regalis or 
Felis pardus, commonly called a lie, is its 

LONGEVITY. 

If it once get born, it lives on almost inter- 
minably. Sometimes it has followed a man for 
ten, twenty or forty years, and has been as 
healthy in its last leap as in the first. It has 
run at every president from General Washington 
to General Grant, and helped kill Horace Greeley. 
It has barked at every good man since Adam, 
and every good woman since Eve, and every good 
boy since Abel, and every good cow since Pharaoh's 
lean kine. Malarias do not poison it, nor fires 
burn it, nor winters freeze it. Just now it is 
after your neighbor; to-morrow it will be after 
you. It is the healthiest of all monsters. Its 
tooth knocks out the ^^ tooth of time.'' Its hair 
never turns white with age, nor does it limp 
with decrepitude. It is distinguished for its 
longevity. 

THE LENGTH OF ITS LEGS. 

It keeps up with the express train, and is present 
at the opening and the shutting of the mailbags. 
It takes a morning run from New York to San 
Francisco or over to London before breakfast. It 
can go a thousand miles at a jump. It would 
despise seven-league boots as tedious. A tele- 
graph pole is just knee-high to this monster, and 
from that you can judge its speed of locomotion. 
It never gets out of wind, carries a bag of reputa- 
tions made up in cold hash, so that it does not 
have to stop for ^ victuals. It goes so fast that 
sometimes five niillion people have seen it the 
same morning. 

KEENNESS OF NOSTRIL. 

It can smell a moral imperfection fifty miles 
away. The crow has no faculty compared with 



A Lie^ Zoologically Co7isidered, 67 

this for finding carrion. It has scented some- 
thing a hundred miles off, and before night 
^ * treed" its game. It has a great genius for smell- 
ing. It can find more than is actually there. 
When it begins to snufi* the air, you had better 
look out. It has great length and breadth and 
depth and height of nose. 

ACUTENESS OF EAR. 

The rabbit has no such power to listen as this 
creature we speak of. It hears all the sounds 
that come from five thousand keyholes. It catches 
a w^hisper from the other side the room, and can 
understand the scratch of a pen. It has one ear 
open toward the east and the other toward the 
west, and hears everything in both directions. 
All the tittle-tattle of the world pours into those 
ears like vinegar through a funnel. They are 
always up and open, and to them a meeting of 
the sewing society is a jubilee and a political cam- 
paign is heaven. "^ 

SIZE OF THROAT. 

The snake has hard work to choke down a 
toad, and the crocodile has a mighty struggle to 
take in the calf; but the monster of which I 
speak can swallow anything. It has a throat 
bigger than the whale that took down the minister 
who declined the call to Nineveh, and has swal- 
lowed whole presbyteries and conferences of 
clergymen. A Brobdingnagian goes down as 
easily as a Liliputian. The largest story about 
business dishonor, or female frailty, or political 
deception, slips through with the ease of a 
homoeopathic pellet. Its throat is suflicient for 
anything round, or square, or angular, or octagonal. 

Nothing in all the earth is too big for its mas- 
tication and digestion save the truth, and that 
will stick in its gullet. 



68 Around the Tea-table, 

IT IS GKEGARIOUS. 

It goes in a flock with others of its kind. If 
one takes after a man or woman, there are at 
least ten in its company. As soon as anything 
bad is charged against a man, there are many 
others who know things just as deleterious. Lies 
about himself, lies about his wife, lies about his 
children, lies about his associates, lies about his 
house, lies about his barn, lies about his store — 
sswarms of them, broods of them, herds of them. 
Kill one of them, and there will be twelve alive 
to act as its pall-bearers, another to preach its 
funeral sermon, and still another to write its 
obituary. 

These monsters beat all the extinct species. 
They are white, spotted and black. They have 
^ sleek hide, a sharp claw and a sting in their 
tail. They prowl through every street of the 
city, craunch in the restaurants, sleep in the hall 
of Congress, and in grandest parlor have one paw 
under the piano, another under the sofa, one by 
the mantel and the other on the door-sill. 

Now, many people spend half their time in 
hunting lies. You see a man rushing anxiously 
about to correct a newspaper paragraph, or a hus- 
band, with fist clenched, on the way to pound 
some one who has told a false thing about his 
wife. There is a woman on the next street who 
•heard, last Monday, a falsehood about her hus- 
band, and has had her hat and shawl on ever 
6ince in the effort to correct wrong impressions. 
Our object in this zoological sketch of a lie is to 
persuade you of the folly of such a hunting ex- 
cursion. If these monsters have such long legs, 
and go a hundred miles at a jump, you might as 
well give up the chase. If they have such keen- 
ness of nostril, they can smell you across the 
State, and get out of your way. If they have such 



A Lie, Zoologically Coyisidered. 69 

long ears, they can hear the hunter's first step in. 
the woods. If they have such great throats, they 
can swallow you at a gape. If they are gregarious, 
while you shoot one, forty will run upon yoa 
like mad buffaloes, and trample you to death. 
Arrows bound back from their thick hide; 
and as for gunpow^der, they use it regularly for 
pinches of snuff. After a shower of bullets has 
struck their side, they lift their hind foot to 
scratch the place, supposing a black fly has beert 
biting. Henry the Eighth, in a hawking party^ 
on foot, attempted to leap a ditch in Hertford- 
shire, and with his immense avoirdupois w^eight 
went splashing into the mud and slime, and was 
hauled out by his footman half dead. And that 
is the fate of men who spend their time hunting 
for lies. Better go to your w^ork, and let the lies 
run. Their bloody muzzles have tough work wdth 
a man usefully busy. You cannot so easily over- 
come them with sharp retort as wdth adze and 
yardstick. All the bowlings of Californian wolves 
at night do not stop the sun from kindling vic- 
torious morn on the Sierra Nevadas, and all the 
ravenings of defamation and revenge cannot hin- 
der the resplendent dawn of heaven on a righ- 
teous soul. 

But they who spend their time in trying to 
lasso and decapitate a lie w^ill come back w^orsted, 
as did the English cockneys from a fox chase 
described in the poem entitled ''Pills to Purge 
Melancholy : ' ' 

*'And when they had done their sport, they 

came to London, where they dwell, 
Their faces all so torn and scratched their wivGs 

scarce knew them well ; 
For 'twas a very great mercy so many 'scaped 

alive, 
For of twenty saddles carried out, they brought 

again but five. ' ' 



CHAPTER XII, 
A BKEATH OF ENGLISH AIE. 

My friend looked white as the wall, flung the 
*' London Times'' half across the room, kicked 
one slipper into the air and shouted, *'Talmage, 
where on earth did you come from?'* as one 
summer I stepped into his English home. ^'Just 
come over the ferry to dine with you,'' I re- 
sponded. After some explanation about the health 
of my family, which demanded a sea voyage, and 
thus necessitated my coming, we planned two or 
three excursions. 

At eight o'clock in the morning we gathered in 
the parlor in the Eed Horse Hotel, at Stratford- 
on-Avon. ^ Two pictures of Washington Irving, 
the chair in which the father of American liter- 
ature sat, and the table on which he wrote, im- 
mortalizing his visit to that hotel, adorn the 
room. From thence we sallied forth to see the 
clean, quaint village of Stratford. It was built 
just to have Shakspeare born in. We have not 
heard that there was any one else ever born there, 
before or since. If, by any strange possibility, 
it could be proved that the great dramatist was 
born anywhere else, it would ruin all the cab 
drivers, guides and hostelries of the place. 

We went of course to the house where Shak- 
speare first appeared on the stage of life, and 
enacted the first act of his first play. Scene the 
first. Enter John Shakspeare, the father; Mrs. 
Shakspeare, the mother, and the old nurse, 
with young William. 

A very plain house it is. Like the lark, which 
soars highest, but builds its nest lowest, so with 

70 



A Breath of English Air. 71 

genius; it has humble beginnings. I think ten 
thousand dollars would be a large appraisement 
for all the houses where the great poets were born. 
But all the world comes to this lowly dwelling. 
Walter Scott was glad to scratch his name on 
the window, and you may see it now. Charles 
Dickens, Edmund Kean, Albert Smith, Mark 
Lemon and Tennyson, so very sparing of their 
autographs, have left their signatures on the wall. 
There are the jambs of the old fire-place where 
the poet warmed himself and combed wool, and 
began to think for all time. Here is the chair in 
which he sat while presiding at the club, form- 
ing habits of drink which killed him at the last, 
his own life ending in a tragedy as terrible as any 
he ever wrote. Exeunt wine-bibbers, topers, 
grogshop keepers, Drayton, Ben Jonson and Wil- 
liam Shakspeare. Here also is the letter which 
Richard Quyney sent to Shakspeare, asking to 
borrow thirty pounds. I hope he did not loan it ; 
for if he did, it was a dead loss. 

We went to the church where the poet is buried. 
It dates back seven hundred years, but has been 
often restored. It has many pictures, and is the 
sleeping place of many distinguished dead ; but 
one tomb within the chancel absorbs all the atten- 
tion of the stranger. For hundreds of years the 
world has looked upon the unadorned stone lying 
fiat over the dust of William Shakspeare, and read 
the epitaph written by himself: 

''Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare 
To dig the dust enclosed here ; 
Bleste be ye man yt spares these stones. 
And curst be he that moves my bones. ' ' 

Under such anathema the body has slept se- 
curely. A sexton once looked in at the bones, but 
did not dare to touch them, lest his '* quietus" 
should be made with a bare bodkin. 



72 Around the Tea-table. 

From the church door we mounted our car- 
riage; and crossing the Avon on a bridge which 
the lord mayor of London built four "hundred 
years ago, we start on one of the most memorable 
rides of our life. The country looked fresh and 
luxuriant from recent rains. The close-trimmed 
hedges, the sleek cattle, the snug cottages, the 
straggling villages with their historic inns, the 
castle from whose park Shakspeare stole the deer, 
the gate called ^' Shakspeare 's stile," curious in 
the fact that it looks like ordinary bars of fence, 
but as you attempt to climb over, the whole thing 
gives way, and lets you fall flat, righting itself 
as soon as it is unburdened of you ; the rabbits 
darting along the hedges, undisturbed, because it 
is unlawful, save for licensed hunters, to shoot, 
and then not on private property; the perfect 
weather, the blue sky, the exhilarating breeze, 
the glorious elms and oaks by the way, — make it 
a day that will live when most other days are dead. 

At two o'clock we came in sight of Kenilworth 
Castle. Oh, this is the place to stir the blood. 
It is the king of ruins. Warwick is nothing^ 
Melrose is nothing, compared with it, A thou- 
sand great facts look out through the broken win- 
dows. Earls and kings and queens sit along the 
shattered sides of the banqueting halls. The stairs 
are worn deep with the feet that have clambered 
them for eight hundred years. As a loving 
daughter arranges the dress of an old man, so 
every season throws a thick mantle of ivy over 
the mouldering wall. The roof that caught and 
echoed back the merriment of dead ages has per- 
ished. Time has struck his chisel into every inch 
of the structure. By the payment of only three- 
pence you find access to places where only the 
titled were once permitted to walk. You go in, 
and are overwhelmed with the thoughts of past 
glory and present decay. These halls were prom- 



A Breath of English Air. 73 

enacled by Kichard Coeur de Lion ; in this chapel 
burned the tomb lights over the grave of GeoU'rey 
de Clinton ; in these dungeons kings groaned ; in 
these doorways duchesses fainted. Scene of gold, 
and silver, and scroll work, and chiseled arch, 
and mosaic. Here were heard the carousals of 
the Round Table; from those very stables the 
caparisoned horses came prancing out for the 
tournament; through that gateway strong, weak, 
heroic, mean, splendid, Queen Elizabeth advanced 
to the castle, while the waters of the lake gleamed 
under torchlights, and the battlements were atiame 
with rockets ; and cornet, and hautboy, , and 
trumpet poured their music on the air ; and 
goddesses glided out from the groves to meet 
her; and from turret to foundation Kenil worth 
trembled under a cannonade, and for seventeen 
days, at a cost of five thousand dollars a day, the 
festival was kept. Four hundred servants stand- 
ing in costly livery ; sham battles between knights 
on horseback; jugglers tumbling on the grass; 
thirteen bears baited for the amusement of the 
guests ; three hundred and twenty hogsheads < i 
beer consumed, till all Europe applauded, de- 
nounced and stood amazed. 

Where is the glory now? What has become of 
the velvet? Who wears the jewels? Would Amy 
Robsart have so longed to get into the castle had 
she known its coming ruin? Where are those 
who were waited on, and those who waited? 
What has become of Elizabeth, the visitor, and 
Robert Dudley, the visited? Cromwell's men 
dashed upon the scene; they drained the lakes; 
they befouled the banquet hall ; they dismantled ' 
the towers ; they turned the castle into a tomb, 
on whose scarred and riven sides ambition and 
cruelty and lust may well read their doom. *'So 
let all thine enemies perish, O Lord ; but let 
them that love him be as the sun when he goeth 
forth in his might. ' ' 



OiiO^J 



CHAPTER XIII. 
THE MIDNIGHT LECTURE. 

At eight o* clock precisely, on consecutive nights, 
we stepped on the rostrum at Chicago, Zaiiesville, 
Indianapolis, Detroit, Jacksonville, Cleveland and 
Buffalo. But it seemed that Dayton was t,o be 
a failure. We telegraphed from Indianapolis, 
'* Missed connection. Cannot possibly meet en- 
gagement at Dayton. ' ' Telegram came back say- 
ing, *^Take a locomotive and come on!'/ We 
could not get a locomotive. Another telegram 
arrived: *'Mr. Gale, the superintendent of rail- 
road, will send you in an extra train. Go imme- 
diately to the depot ! ' ' We gathered up our traps 
from the hotel floor and sofa, and hurled them at 
the satchel. They would not go in. We put a 
collar in our hat, and the shaving apparatus in 
our coat pocket ; got on the satchel with both feet, 
and declared the thing should go shut if it split 
everything between Indianapolis and Dayton. 
Arriving at the depot, the train was ready. We 
had a locomotive and one car. There were six of 
ijjs on the train— namely, the engineer and stoker 
on the locomotive ; while following were the con- 
ductor, a brakeman at each end of the car, and 
the pastor of a heap of ashes on Schermerhorn 
street, Brooklyn. ^^When shall we get to Day- 
ton?" we asked. '^ Half -past nine o'clock I" re- 
sponded^ the conductor. *'Absurd!'' we said; 
' no audience will wait till half -past nine at night 
for a lecturer. ' ' 

Away we flew. The car, having such a light 
load, frisked and kicked, and made merry of a 
journey that to us was becoming very grave. Go- 

74 



The Midnight Lecture, 75 

ing round a sharp curve at break-neck speed, we 
felt inclined to suggest to the conductor that it 
would make no especial difference if we did not 
get to Dayton till a quarter to ten. The night 
was cold, and the hard ground thundered and 
cracked. The bridges, instead of roaring, as is 
their wont, had no time to give any more than a 
grunt as we struck them and passed on. At times 
it was so rough we were in doubt as to wdiether 
we were on tlie track or taking a short cut across 
the field to get to our destination a little sooner. 
The flagmen would hastily open their windows 
and look at the screeching train. The whistle 
blew wildly, net so much to give the villages 
warning as to let them know that something ter- 
rible had gone through. Stopped to take in wood 
and water. A crusty old man crawled out of a 
depot, and said to the engineer, *^Jim, what 
on earth is the matter?'^ * 'Don't know," said 
Jim ; * ' that fellow in the car yonder is bound to 
get to Dayton, and we are putting things through. ' ' 
Brakes lifted, bell rung, and off again. Amid 
the rush and pitch of the train there was no 
chance to prepare our toilet, and no looking-glass, 
and it was quite certain that we would have to 
step from the train immediately into the lectur- 
ing hall. We were unfit to be seen. We were 
gure our hair was parted in five or six different 
places, and that the cinders had put our face in 
mourning, and that something must be done. 
What time w^e could spare from holding on to 
the bouncing seat we gave to our toilet, and the 
arrangements we made, though far from satis- 
factory, satisfied our conscience that we had done 
what we could. A button broke as we were fast- 
ening our collar — indeed, a button always does 
break when you are in a hurry and nobody to 
sew it on. *'How long before we get there;?*' 
we anxiously asked. ^^I have miscalculated/' 



76 Around the Tea-table^ 

said the conductor ; ^ ^ we cannot get there till ^^i^ 
minutes of ten o'clock. '^ ''My dear man, ''I 
cried, ^^you might as well turn round and go 
back ; the audience will be gone long before ten 
o'clock." ''No!" said the conductor; "at the 
last depot I got a telegram saying they are wait- 
ing patiently, and telling us to hurry on. ' ' The 
locomotive seemed to feel it was on the home 
stretch. At times, what with the whirling smoke 
and the showering sparks, and the din, and rush, 
and bang, it seemed as if we were on our last 
ride, and that the brakes would not fall till we 
stopped for ever. 

At five minutes of ten o'clock we rolled into 
the Dayton depot, and before the train came to 
a halt we were in a carriage with the lecturing 
committee, going at the horse's full run toward 
the opera house. Without an instant in which to 
slacken our pulses, the chairman rushed in upon 
the stage, and introduced the lecturer of the even- 
ing. After in the quickest way shedding over- 
coat and shawl, we confronted the audience, and 
with our head yet swimming from the motion of 
the rail-train, we accosted the people — many of 
whom had been waiting since seven o'clock — with 
the words, *'Long-sufi'ering but patient ladies and 
gentlemen, you are the best-natured audience I 
ever saw. ' ' When we concluded what we had to 
say, it was about midnight, and hence the title 
of this little sketch. 

We would have felt it more worthy of the rail- 
road chase if it had been a sermon rather than a 
lecture. Why do not the Young Men's Christian 
Associations of the country intersperse religious 
discourses with the secular, the secular demand- 
ing an admission fee, the religious without 
money or price? If such associations would take 
as fine a hall, and pay as much for advertising, 
the audience to hear the sermon would be as large 



The Midriight Lecture. 77 

as the audience to hear the lecture. What con- 
secrated minister would not rather tell the story 
of Christ and heaven free of charge than to get 
five hundred dollars for a secular address? Wake 
up, Young Men's Christian Associations, to your 
glorious opportunity. It would afford a pleasing 
change. Let Wendell Phillips give in the course 
his great lecture on ^'The Lost Arts;" and A. A. 
Willitts speak on ' 'Sunshine," himself the best 
illustration of his subject ; and Mr. Milburn, by 
''What a Blind Man Saw in England," almost 
prove that eyes are a superfluity ; and W. H. H. 
Murray talk of the "Adirondacks, " till you can 
hear the rifle crack and the fall of the antlers on 
the rock. But in the very midst of all this have 
a religious discourse that shall show that holiness 
is the lost art, and that Christ is the sunshine, 
and that the gospel helps a blind man to see, and 
that from Pisgah and Mount Zion there is a better 
prospect than from the top of fifty Adirondacks. 

As for ourselves, save in rare and peculiar cir- 
cumstances, good-bye to the lecturing platform, 
while we try for the rest of our life to imitate the 
minister who said, "This one thing I do!" 
There are exhilarations about lecturing that one 
finds it hard to break from, and many a minister 
who thought himself reformed of lecturing has, 
over-tempted, gone up to the American Library 
or Boston Lyceum Bureau, and drank down raw, 
a hundred lecturing engagements. Still, a man 
once in a while finds a new pair of spectacles to 
look through. 

Between Indianapolis and Dayton, on that 
wild, swift ride, we found a moral which we 
close with — for the printer-boy with inky fingers 
is waiting for this paragraph — Never take the last 
train when you can help it. Much of the trouble 
in life is caused by the fact that people, in their 
engagements, wait til' the last miimte. The 



78 Around the Tea-table. 

seven-o^clock train will take them to the right 
place if everything goes straight, but in this world 
things are very apt to go crooked. So you had 
better take the train that starts an hour earlier. 
In everything we undertake let us leave a little 
margin. We tried, jokingly, to persuade Cap- 
tain Berry, when off Cape Hatteras, to go down 
and get his breakfast, while we took his place 
and watched the course of the steamer. He 
intimated to us that we were running too near 
the bar to allow a greenhorn to manage matters 
just there. There is always danger in sailing 
near a coast, whether in ship or in plans and 
morals. Do not calculate too closely on possi- 
bilities. Better have room and time to spare. 
Do not take the last train. Not heeding this 
counsel makes bad work for this world and the 
next. There are many lines of communication 
between earth and heaven. Men say they can 
start at any time. After a while, in great excite- 
ment, they rush into the depot of mercy and 
find that the final opportunity has left, and, be- 
hold J it is the last train 1 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE SEXTON. 

King David, it is evident, once thought some- 
thing of becoming a church sexton, for he said, 
'*I had rather be a doorkeeper," and so on. But 
he never carried out the plan, perhaps because 
he had not the qualification. It requires more 
talent in some respects to be sexton than to be 
king. A sexton, like a poet, is born. A church, 
in order to peace and success, needs the right 
kind of man at the prow, and the right kind at 
the stern — that is, a good minister and a good 
sexton. So far as we have observed, there are 
four kinds of janitors. 

THE FIDGETY SEXTON. 

He is never still. His being in any one place 
proves to him that he ought to be in some other. 
In the most intense part of the service, every 
ear alert to the truth, the minister at the very 
climax of his subject, the fidgety official starts 
up the aisle. The whole congi^gation instantly 
turn from the consideration of judgment and 
eternity to see what the sexton wants. The 
minister looks, the elders look, the people in the 
gallery get up to look. It is left in universal 
doubt as to why the sexton frisked about at just 
that moment. He must have seen a fly on the 
opposite side of the church wall that needed to 
be driven off before it spoiled the fresco, or he 
may have suspicion that a rat terrier is in one of 
the pews by the pulpit, from the fact that he 
saw two or three children laughing. Now, there 
is nothing more perplexing than a dog chase 

79 



8o Around the Tea-table, 

during religious services. At a prayer meeting 
once m my house, a snarling poodle came in, 
looked around, and then went and sat under the 
chair of its owner. We had no objection to its 
being there (dogs should not be shut out from 
all advantages), but the intruder would not keep 
quiet. A brother of dolorous whine was engaged 
in prayer, when poodle evidently thought that 
the tirne for response had come, and gave a loud 
yawn that had no tendency to solemnize the 
occasion. I resolved to endure it no longer. I 
started to extirpate the nuisance. I made a fear- 
ful pass of my hand in the direction of the dog, 
but missed him. A lady arose to give me a bet- 
ter chance at the vile pup, but I discovered that 
he had changed position. I felt by that time 
obstinately determined to eject him. He had 
got under a rocking chair, at a point beyond our 
reach, unless we got on our knees ; and it being 
a prayer meeting, we felt no inappropriateness in 
taking that position. Of course the exercise had 
meanwhile been suspended, and the eyes of all 
were upon my undertaking. The elders wished 
me all success in this police duty, but the mis- 
chievous lads by the door were hoping for my 
failure. Knowing this I resolved that if the exer- 
cises were never resumed, I would consummate 
the work and eject the disturber. While in this 
mood I gave a lunge for the dog, not looking to 
my feet, and fell over a rocker ; but there were 
sympathetic hands to help me up, and I kept on 
juntil by the back of the neck I grasped the 
grizzly-headed pup, as he commenced kicking, 
scratching, barking, yelping, howling, and car- 
ried him to the door in triumph, and, without 
any care as to where he landed, hurled him out 
into the darkness. 

Give my love to the sexton, and tell him never 
to chase a dog in religious service. Better let it 



The Sexton. 8i 

alone, though it should, like my friend's poll- 
parrot, during prayer time, break out with the 
song, **I would not live alway !'* But the fidgety 
sexton is ever on the chase; his boots are apt 
to be noisy and say as he goes up the aisle, 
' ' Creakety- crack I Here I come. Creakety-crack ! ' ' 
Why should he come in to call the doctor out of 
his pew when the case is not urgent? Cannot 
the patient wait twenty minutes, or is this the 
cheap way the doctor has of advertising? Dr. 
Camomile had but three cases in three months, 
and, strange coincidence, they all came to him at 
half -past eleven o'clock Sunday morning, while 
he was in church. If windows are to be lowered, 
or blinds closed, or register to be shut off, let it 
be before the sermon. 

THE LAZY SEXTON. 

He does not lead the stranger to the pew, but 
goes a little way on the aisle, and points, saying, 
*'Out yonder!'' You leave the photograph of 
your back in the dust of the seat you occupy ; the 
air is in an atmospheric hash of what was left 
over last Sunday. Lack of oxygen will dull the 
best sermon, and clip the wings of gladdest song, 
and stupefy an audience. People go out from the 
poisoned air of our churches to die of pneumonia. 
What a sin, when there is so much fresh air, to 
let people perish for lack of it! The churches 
are the worst ventilated buildings on the conti- 
nent. No amount of grace can make stale air 
sacred. '*The prince of the power of the air*' 
wants nothing but poisoned air for the churches. 
After audiences have assembled, and their cheeks 
are flushed, and their respiration has become 
painful, it is too late to change it. Open a win- 
dow or door now, and you ventilate only the top 
of that man's bald head, and the back of the 
neck of that delicate woman, and you send off 



82 Around the Tea-table. 

hundreds of people coughing and sneezing. One 
reason why the Sabbaths are so wide apart is that 
every church building may have six days of 
atmospheric purification. The best man's breath 
once ejected is not worth keeping. Our congrega- 
tions are dying of asphyxia. In the name of all 
the best interests of the church, I indict one-half 
the sextons. 

THE SOOD SEXTON. 

He is the minister's blessing, the church's joy, 
a harbinger of the millennium. People come to 
church to have him help them up the aisle. He 
wears slippers. He stands or sits at the end of 
the church during an impressive discourse, and 
feels that, though he did not furnish the ideas, 
he at least furnished the wind necessary in 
preaching it. He has a quick nostril to detect 
unconsecrated odors, and puts the man who eats 
garlic on the back seat in the corner. He does 
not regulate the heat by a broken thermometer, 
minus the mercury. He has the window blinds 
arranged just right — the light not too glaring so 
as to show the freckles, nor too dark so as to cast 
a gloom, but a subdued light that makes the 
plainest face attractive. He rings the bell merrily 
for Christmas festival, and tolls it sadly for the 
departed. He has real pity for the bereaved in 
whose house he goes for the purpose of burying 
their dead — not giving by cold, professional man- 
ner the impression that his sympathy for the 
troubled is overpowered by the joy that he has 
in selling another coffin. He forgets not his 
own soul ; and though his place is to stand at the 
door of the ark, it is surely inside of it. After 
a while, a Sabbath comes when everything is 
wrong in church : the air is impure, the furnaces 
fail in their work, and the eyes of the people are 
blinded with an unpleasant glare. Everybody 



The Sexton. 83 

asks, ** Where is our old sexton?'' Alas! he will 
never come again. He has gone to join Obed- 
edom and Berechiah, the doorkeepers of the 
ancient ark. He will never again take the dust- 
ing whisk from the closet under the church 
stairs, for it is now with him **Dust to dust/' 
The bell he so often rang takes up its saddest toll- 
ing for him who used to pull it, and the minister 
goes into his disordered and unswept pulpit, and 
tmds the Bible upside down as he takes it up to 
read his text in Psalms, 84th chapter and 10th 
verse : * * I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house 
of my God than to dwell in the tents of wicked- 
ness!" 



CHAPTER XV. 
THE OLD CEADLE« 

The historic and old-time cradle is dead, and 
buried in the rubbish of the garret. A baby of 
five months, filled with modern notions, would 
spurn to be rocked in the awkward and rustic 
thing. The baby spits the ** Alexandra feeding- 
bottle' ' out of its mouth, and protests against the 
old-fashioned cradle, giving emphasis to its utter- 
ances by throwing down a rattle that cost seven 
dollars, and kicking off a shoe imported at fabu- 
lous expense, and upsetting the * ^ baby-basket, * * 
with all its treasures of ivory hair brushes and 
'*Meen Fun.'' Not with voice, but by violence 
of gesture and kicks and squirms, it says : * * What ! 
You going to put me in that old cradle? Where 
is the nurse? My patience I What does mother 
mean? Get me a 'patented self -rocker 1 ' " 

The parents yield. In comes the new-fangled 
crib. The machine is wound up, the baby put 
in, the crib set in motion, and mother goes off to 
make a first-rate speech at the *' Woman's Rights 
Convention!" 

Conundrum: Why is a maternal elocutionist of 
this sort like a mother of old time, who trained 
four sons for the holy ministry, and through them 
was the means of reforming and saving a thousand 
souls, and through that thousand of saving ten 
thousand more? You answer: **No resemblance 
at all ! " You are right. Guessed the conundrum 
the first time. Go up to the head of the class! 

Now, the ''patented self-rockers," no doubt, 
have their proper use • but go up with me into 
the garret of your old homestead, and exhume 

84 



The Old Cradle, 85 

fche cradle that you, a good while ago, slept in. 
The rockers are somewhat rough, as though a 
farmer's plane had fashioned them, and the sides 
just high enough for a child to learn to walk by. 
What a homely thing, take it all in all ! You 
say : Stop your depreciation ! We were all rocked 
in that. For about fifteen years that cradle was 
going much of the time. When the older child 
was taken out, a smaller child was put in. The 
crackle of the rockers is pleasant yet in my ears. 
There I took my first lessons in music as mother 
sang to me. Have heard what you would call 
far better singing since then, but none that so 
thoroughly touched me. She never got five hun- 
dred dollars per night for singing three songs at 
the Academy, with two or three encores grudge- 
fully thrown in ; but without pay she some- 
times sang all night, and came out whenever 
encored, though she had only two little ears for 
an audience. It was a low, subdued tone that 
sings to me yet across thirty-five years. 

You see the edge of that rocker worn quite 
deep? That is where her foot was placed while 
she sat with her knitting or sewing, on summer 
afternoons, while the bees hummed at the door 
and the shout of the boy at the oxen was heard 
afield. From the way the rocker is worn, I think 
that sometimes the foot must have been veiy 
tired and the ankle very sore ; but I do not think 
she stopped for that. When such a cradle as that 
got a-going, it kept on for years. 

Scarlet- fever came in the door, and we all had 
it; and oh, how the cradle did go! We con- 
tended as to who should lie in it, for sickness, 
you know, makes babies of us all. But after a 
while we surrendered it to Charlie. He was too 
old to lie in it, but he seemed so very, very sick ; 
and with him in the cradle it was '^Eock!'* 
^'Kockl*^ *'Eock!'' But one day, just as long 



86 Around the Tea-table, 

ago as you can remember, the cradle stopped. 
When a child is asleep, there is no need of rock- 
ing. Charlie was asleep. He was sound asleep. 
Nothing would wake him. He needed taking up. 
Mother was too weak to do it. The neighbors 
came in to do that, and put a flower, fresh out 
of the garden-dew, between the two still hands. 
The fever had gone out of the cheek, and left 
it white, very white — the rose exchanged for the 
lily. There was one less to contend for the cradle. 
It soon started again, and with a voice not quite 
so firm as before, but more tender, the old song 
came back: **Bye! bye! b^^e!'' which meant 
more to you than * ^ II Trovatore, ' ' rendered by 
opera troupe in the presence of an American 
audience, all leaning forward and nodding to 
show how well they understood Italian. 

There was a wooden canopy at the head of the 
old cradle that somehow got loose and was taken 
off. But your infantile mind was most impressed 
with the face which much of the time hovered 
over you. Other women sometimes looked in at 
the child, and said: *^That child's hair will be 
red ! ' ' or, * * What a peculiar chin ! * ' or, * * Do you 
think that child will live to grow up?'' and 
although you were not old enough to understand 
their talk, by instinct you knew it was something 
disagreeable, and began to cry till the dear, sweet, 
familiar face again hovered and the rainbow 
arched the sky. Oh, we never get away from 
the benediction of such a face ! It looks at us 
through storm and night. It smiles all to pieces 
the world's frown. After thirty-five years of 
rough tumbling on the world's couch, it puts us 
in the cradle again, and hushes us as with the 
very lullaby of heaven. 

Let the old cradle rest in the garret. It has 
earned its quiet. The hands that shook up its 
pillow have quit work. The foot that kept the 



The Old Cradle. 87 

rocker in motion is through with its journey. 
The face that hovered has been veiled from mortal 
sight. Cradle of blessed memories ! Cradle that 
soothed so many little griefs ! Cradle that kindled 
60 many hopes! Cradle that rested so many 
fatigues I Sleep now thyself, after so many years 
of putting others to sleep ! 

One of the great wants of the age is the right 
kind of a cradle and the right kind of a foot to 
rock it. We are opposed to the usurpation of 
* * patented self -rockers. ' ' When I hear a boy call- 
ing his grandfather *'old daddy/' and see the 
youngster whacking his mother across the face 
because she will not let him have ice-cream and 
lemonade in the same stomach, and at some refusal 
holding his breath till he gets black in the face, 
so that to save the child from fits the mother is 
compelled to give him another dumpling, and he 
afterward goes out into the world stubborn, will- 
ful, selfish and intractable, — I say that boy was 
brought up in a *^ patented self-rocker. ' * The 
old-time mother would have put him down in 
the old-fashioned cradle, and sung to him, 

**Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber, 
Holy angels guard thy bed;'' 

and if that did not take the spunk out of him 
would have laid him in an inverted position across 
her lap, with his face downward, and with a rous- 
ing spank made him more susceptible to the music. 
When a mother, who ought to be most inter- 
ested in training her children for usefulness and 
heaven, gives her chief time to fixing up her 
back hair, and is worried to death because the 
curls she bought are not of the same shade as the 
sparsely-settled locks of her own raising; and 
culturing the dromedarian hump of dry-goods on 
her back till, as she comes into church, a good 
old elder bursts into laughter behind his pocket- 



88 Around the Tea-table. 

handkerchief, making the merriment jsound as 
much like a sneeze as possible; her waking mo- 
ments employed with discussions about polonaise, 
and vert-de-gris velvets, and ecru percale, and 
fringed guipure, and poufs, and sashes, and rose- 
de-chfine silks, and scalloped flounces; her hap- 
piness in being admired at balls and parties and 
receptions,— you may know that she has thrown 
oflf the care of her children, that they are looking 
after themselves, that they are being brought up 
by machinery instead of loving hands — in a word, 
that there is in her home a ^ * patented self- rocker ! ' ' 

So far as possible, let all women dress beauti- 
fully : so God dresses the meadows and the moun- 
tains. Let them wear pearls and diamonds if 
they can afford it : God has hung round the neck 
of his world strings of diamonds, and braided 
the black locks of the storm with bright ribbons 
of rainbow. Especially before and right after 
breakfast, ere they expect to be seen of the world, 
let them look neat and attractive for the family's 
sake. One of the most hideous sights is a slovenly 
woman at the breakfast table. Let woman adorn 
herself. Let her speak on platforms so far as she 
may have time and ability to do so. But let not 
mothers imagine that there is any new way of 
successfully training children, or of escaping the 
old-time self-denial and continuous painstaking. 

Let this be the commencement of the law suit : 
OLD CRADLE 
versus 
PATENTED SELF-EOCKER. 

Attorneys for plaintiff — all the cherished mem- 
ories of the past. 

Attorneys for the defendant — ^all the humbugs 
of the present. 

For jury — the good sense of all Christendom. 

Crier, open the court and let the jury be em- 
paneled. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

A HORSE'S LETTER. 

[translated for the tea-table.] 

Brooklyn Livery Stables, 

January 20, 1874. 

My dear Gentlemen and Ladies: I am aware 
that this is the first time a horse has ever taken 
upon himself to address any member of the 
human family. True, a second cousin of our 
household once addressed Balaam, but his voice 
for public speaking was so poor that he got un- 
mercifully whacked, and never tried it again. 
We have endured in silence all the outrages of 
many thousands of years, but feel it now time to 
make remonstrance. Recent attentions have made 
us aware of our worth. During the epizootic 
epidemic we had at our stables innumerable calls 
from doctors and judges and clergymen. Every- 
body asked about our health. Groomsmen bathed 
our throats, and sat up wath us nights, and fur- 
nished us pocket-handkerchiefs. For the first 
time in years we had quiet Sundays. We over- 
heard a conversation that made us think that the 
commerce and the fashion of the world waited 
the news from the stable. Telegraphs announced 
our condition across the land and under the sea, 
and we came to believe that this w^orld was origin- 
ally made for the horse, and man for his 
groom. 

But tilings are going back again to where they 
were. Yesterday I w^as driven fifteen miles, 
jerked in the mouth, struck on the back, watered 
when I was too w^arm ; and instead of the six 

89 



90 Around the Tea-table. 

quarts of oats that my driver ordered for me, I 
got two. Last week 1 was driven to a wedding, 
and I heard music and quick feet and laughter 
that made the chandeliers rattle, while I stood 
unblanketed in the cold. Sometimes the doctor 
hires me, and I stand at twenty doors waiting for 
invalids to rehearse all their pains. Then the 
minister hires me, and I have to stay till Mrs. 
Tittle-Tattle has time to tell the dominie all the 
disagreeable things of the parish. 

The other night, after our owner had gone 
home and the hostlers were asleep, we held an 
indignation meeting in our livery stable. *'01d 
Sorrel" presided, and there was a long line of 
vice-presidents and secretaries, mottled bays and 
dappled grays and chestnuts, and Shetland and 
Arabian ponies. * ' Charley, ' ' one of the old in- 
habitants of the stable, began a speech, amid 
great stamping on the part of the audience. But 
he soon broke down for lack of wind. For five 
years he had been suffering with the * ' heaves. ' ' 
Then * ' Pompey, ' ' a venerable nag, took his place ; 
and though he had nothing to say, he held out 
his spavined leg, which dramatic posture excited 
the utmost enthusiasm of the audience. ''Fanny 
Shetland, ' ' the property of a lady, tried to damage 
the meeting by saying that horses had no wrongs. 
She said, * ' Just look at my embroidered blanket. 
I never go out when the weather is bad. Every- 
body who comes near pats me on the shoulder. 
What can be more beautiful than going out on a 
sunshiny afternoon to make an excursion through 
the park, amid the clatter of the hoofs of the 
stallions? I w^alk, or pace, or canter, or gallop, 
as I choose. Think of the beautiful life we live, 
with the prospect, after our easy work is done, 
of going up and joining Elijah's horses of 
fire.'' 

Next, I took the floor, and said that I was 



A Horse^s Letter, 91 

born in a warm, snug Pennsylvania barn; was, 
on my father's side, descendea from Bucephalus; 
on my mother's side, from a steed that Queen 
Elizabeth rode in a steeple chase. My youth was 
passed in clover pastures and under trusses of 
sweet-smelling hay. I flung my heels in glee at 
the farmer when he came to catch me. But on 
a dark day I was over-driven, and my joints 
stiffened, and my fortunes went down, and my 
whole family was sold. My brother, with head 
down and sprung in the knees, pulls the street 
car. My sister makes her living on the tow 
path, hearing the canal boys swear. My aunt 
died of the epizootic. My uncle — ^blina, and 
afiiicted with the bots, the ringbone and the 
spring-halt — wanders about the commons, trying 
to persuade somebody to shoot him. And here I 
stand, old and sick, to cry out against the wrongs 
of horses — the saddles that gall, the spurs that 
prick, the snaffles that pinch, the loadij that 
Kill. 

At this a vicious-looking nag, with mane half 
pulled out, and a ^'watch-eye, " and feet * 'inter- 
fering, '^ and a tail from which had been sub- 
tracted enough hair to make six *' waterfalls, ' ' 
squealed out the suggestion that it was time for 
a rebellion, and she moved that we take the field, 
and that all those who could kick should kick, 
and that all those who could bite should bite, 
and that all those who could bolt should bolt, 
and that all those who could run away should 
run away, and that thus we fill the land with 
broken wagons and smashed heads, and teach our 
oppressors that the day of retribution has come, 
and that our down-trodden race will no more be 
trifled with. 

When this resolution was put to vote, not one 
said ''Aye," but all cried "Nay, nay,'' and for 
the space of half an hour kept on neighing. 



92 Around the Tea-table, 

Instead of this harsh measure, it was voted that, 
by the hand of Henry Bergh, president of the 
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 
I should write this letter of remonstrance. 

My dear gentlemen and ladies, remember that 
we, like yourselves, have moods, and cannot 
always be frisky and cheerful. You do not slap 
your grandmother in the face because this morn- 
ing she does not feel as well as usual ; why, then 
do you slash us? Before you pound us, ask 
whether we have been up late the night before, 
or had our meals at irregular hours, or whether 
our spirits have been depressed by being kicked 
by a drunken hostler. We have only about ten 
or twelve years in which to enjoy ourselves, and 
then we go out to be shot into nothingness. Take 
care of us while you may. Job's horse was 
' * clothed with thunder, * ' but all we ask is a plain 
blanket. When we are sick, put us in a ^'horse- 
pital. " Do not strike us when we stumble or 
scare. Suppose you were in the harness and I 
were in the wagon, I had the whip and you the 
traces, what an ardent advocate you would be for 
kindness to the irrational creation ! Do not let 
the blacksmith drive the nail into the quick 
when he shoes me, or burn my fetlocks with a 
hot file. Do not mistake the ** dead-eye" that 
nature put on my foreleg for a wart to be exter- 
minated. Do not cut off my tail short in fly-time. 
Keep the north wind out of our stables. Care 
for us at some other time than during the 
epizootics, so that we may see your kindness is 
not selfish. 

My dear friends, our interests are mutual. I 
am a silent partner in your business. Under my 
sound hoof is the diamond of national prosperity. 
Beyond my nostril the world's progress may not 
go. With thrift, and wealth, and comfort, I 
daily race neck and neck. Be kind to me if you 



A Horse' s Letter. 93 

want me to be useful to you. And near be the 
day when the red horse of war shall be hocked 
and impotent, and the pale horse of death shall 
be hurled back on his haunches, but the white 
horse of peace, and joy, and triumph shall pass 
on, its rider with face like the sun, all nations 
following! 

Your most obedient servant, 

Charley Bucephalus. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
KINGS OF THE KENNEL. 

I said, when I lost Carlo, that I would never 
own another dog. We all sat around, like big 
children, crying about it; and what made the 
grief worse, we had no sympathizers. Our neigh- 
bors were glad of it, for he had not always done 
the fair thing with them. One of them had lost 
a chicken when it was stuffed and all ready for 
the pan, and suspicions were upon Carlo. 

I was the only counsel for the defendant ; and 
while I had to acknowledge that the circumstan- 
tial evidence was against him, I proved his 
general character for integrity, and showed that 
the common and criminal law were on our side. 
Coke and Blackstone in our favor, and a long list 
of authorities and decisions : II. Eevised Statutes, 
New York, 132, ? 27 ; also, Watch vs. Towser, 
Crompton and Meeson, p. 375 ; also, State of New 
Jersey vs. Sicem Blanchard. 

When I made these citations, my neighbor and 
his wife, who were judges and jurors in the case, 
looked confounded ; and so I followed up the 
advantage I had gained with the law maxim, 
**Non minus ex dolo quam ex culpa quisque hac 
lege tenetur, ' ' which I found afterward was the 
wrong Latin, but it had its desired effect, so that 
the jury did not agree, and Carlo escaped with 
his life ; and on the way home he went spinning 
round like a top, and punctuating his glee with 
a semicolon made by both paws on my new 
clothes. 

Yet, notwithstanding all his predicaments and 
frailties, at his decease we resolved, in our 

94 



Kings of the KeiineL 95 

trouble^ that we would never own another dog. 
But this, like many another resolution of our 
life, has been broken ; and here is Nick, the 
Newfoundland, lying sprawled on the mat. He 
has a jaw set with strength ; an eye mild, but 
indicative of the fact that he does not want too 
many familiarities from strangers ; a nostril large 
enough to snuff a wild duck across the meadows ; 
knows how to shake hands, and can talk with 
head, and ear, and tail; and, save an unreason- 
able antipathy to cats, is perfect, and always goes 
with me on my walk out of town. 

He knows more than a great many people. 
Never do we take a walk but the poodles, and 
the rat-terriers, and the grizzly curs with stringy 
hair and damp nose, get after him. They tumble 
off the front door step and out of the kennel's, 
and assault him front and rear. I have several 
times said to him (not loud enough for Presby- 
tery to hear), ^'Nick, why do you stand all this? 
Go at them!'^ He never takes my advice. He 
lets them bark and snap, and passes on unpro- 
vokedly without sniff or growl. He seems to say, 
*'They are not worth minding. Let them bark. 
It pleases them and don't hurt me. I started out 
for a six-mile tramp, and I cannot be diverted. 
Newfoundlanders like me have a mission. My 
father pulled three drowning men to the beach, 
and my uncle on my mother's side saved a child 
from the snow. If you have anything brave, or 
good, or great for me to do, just clap your hand 
and point out the work, and I will do it, but I 
cannot waste my time on rat-terriers. ' ' 

If Nick had put that in doggerel, I think it 
would have read well. It was wise enough to 
become the dogma of a school. Men and women 
are more easily diverted from the straight course 
than is Nick. No useful people escape being 
barked at. Mythology represents Cerberus a men- 



96 Around the Tea-table, 

ster dog at the mouth of hell, but he has had a 
long line of puppies. They start out at editors, 
teachers, philanthropists and Christians. If these 
men gc right on their way, they perform their 
mission and get their reward, but one-half of 
them stop and make attempt to silence the literary, 
political and ecclesiastical curs that snap at them. 

Many an author has got a drop of printers' ink 
spattered in his eye, and collapsed. The critic 
who had lobsters for supper the night before, and 
whose wife in the morning had parted his hair 
on the wrong side, snarled at the new book, and 
the time that the author might have spent in 
new work he squanders in gunning for' critics. 
You might better have gone straight ahead, Nick ! 
You will come to be estimated for exactly what 
you are worth. If a fool, no amount of newspaper 
or magazine puffery can set you up ; and if you 
are useful, no amount of newspaper or magazine 
detraction can keep you down. For every position 
there are twenty aspirants ; only one man can get 
it ; forthwith the other nineteen are on the offen- 
sive. People are silly enough to think that they 
can build themselves up with the bricks they 
pull out of your wall. Pass on and leave them. 
What a waste of powder for a hunter to go into 
the' wcods to shoot black flies, or for a man of 
great work to notice infinitesimal assault! My 
Newfoundland would scorn to be seen making a 
drive at a black -and -tan terrier. 

But one day, on my walk with Nick, we had 
an awful time. We were coming in at great 
speed, much of the time on a brisk run, my mind 
full of white clover tops and the balm that 
exudes from the woods in full leafage, when, 
passing the commons, we saw a dog fight in which 
there mingled a Newfoundland as large as Nick, 
a blood-hound and a pointer. They had been 
interlocked for some time in terrific combat. 



Kiiigs of the KenneL 97 

They had gnashed upon and torn each other until 
there was getting to be a great scarcity of ears, and 
eyes and tails. 

Nick's head was up, but I advised him that he 
had better keep out of that canine misunder- 
standing. But he gave one look, as much as to 
say, ''Here at last is an occasion worthy of me,'* 
and at that dashed into the fray. There had been 
no order in the fight before, but as Nick entered 
they all pitched at him. They took him fore, 
and aft, and midships. It w-as a greater under- 
taking than he had anticipated. He shook, and 
bit, and hauled, and howled. He wanted to get 
out of the fight, but found that more difficult 
than to get in. 

Now, if there is anything I like, it is fair 
play. I said, ''Count me in!" and with stick 
and other missiles I came in like Blucher at 
nightfall. Nick saw me and plucked up courage, 
and we gave it to them right and left, till our 
opponents went scampering down the hill, and 
I laid down the weapons of conflict and resumed 
my profession as a minister, and gave the morti- 
fied dog some good advice on keeping out of 
scrapes, which homily had its proper efl'ect, for 
wdth head down and penitent look, he jogged 
back with me to the city. 

Lesson for dogs and men : Keep out of fights. 
If you see a church contest, or a company of 
unsanctified females overhauling each other's 
good name until there is nothing left of them 
but a broken hoop skirt and one curl of back 
hair, you had better stand clear. Once go in, 
and your own character will be an invitation to 
their muzzles. Nick's long, clean ear was a temp- 
tation to all the teeth. You will have enough 
battles of your own, without getting a loan of 
conflicts at twenty per cent a month. 

Every time since the unfortunate struggle I 



9$ 



Around the Tea-table, 



have described, when Nick and I take a country 
walk and pass a dog fight, he comes close up by 
my side^ and looks me in the eye with one long 
wipe 01 the tongue over his chops, as much as 
to say, * * Easier to get into a fight than to get out 
of it. Better jog along our own v/ay;'* and then 
I preach him a short sermon from Proverbs xxvi. 
17: **He that passeth by, and meddleth with 
strife belonging not to him, ia like one that 
taketh a dog by the ears. ' ' 



K 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
THE MASSACKE OF CHURCH MUSIC. 

There has been an effort made for the last 
twenty years to kill congregational singing. The 
attempt has been tolerably successful ; but it seems> 
to me that some rules might be given by which 
the work could be done more quickly, and com- 
pletely. What is the use of having it lingering 
on in this uncertain way? Why not put it out 
of its misery? If you are going to kill a snake^ 
kill it thoroughly, and do not let it keep on wag- 
ging its tail till sundown. Congregational singing 
is a nuisance, anyhow, to many of the people. 
It interferes with their comfort. It offends their 
taste. It disposes their nose to flexibility in the 
upward direction. It is too democratic in its 
tendency. Down with congregational singing, 
and let us have no more of it. 

The first rule for killing it is to have only such 
tunes as the people cannot sing! 

In some churches it is the custom for choirs at 
each service to sing one tune which the people 
know. It is very generous of the choir to do 
that. The people ought to be very thankful for 
the donation. They do not deserve it. They 
are all ^^ miserable offenders" (I heard them say 
so), and, if permitted once in a service to sing, 
ought to think themselves highly favored. But 
I oppose this singing of even the one tune that 
the people understand. It spoils them. It gets 
them hankering after more. Total abstinence is 
the only safety ; for if you allow them to imbibe 
at all, they will after a while get in the habit of 
drinking too much of it, and the first thing you 

99 



loo Around the Tea-table, 

know they will be going around drunk on sacred 
psalmody. 

Beside that, if you let them sing one tune at a 
service, they will be putting their oar into the 
other tunes and bothering the choir. There is 
nothing more annoying to the choir than, at some 
moment when they have drawn out a note to 
exquisite fineness, thin as a split hair, to have 
some blundering elder to come in with a ^^ Praise 
ye the Lord ! ' ' Total abstinence, I say ! Let all 
the churches take the pledge even against the 
milder musical beverages; for they who tamper 
with champagne cider soon get to Hock and old 
Burgundy. 

Now, if all the tunes are new^, there will be no 
temptation to the people. They will not keep 
humming along, hoping they will find some bars 
down where they can break into the clover pas- 
ture. They will take the tune as an inextricable 
conundrum, and give it up. Besides that, Pisgah, 
Ortonville and Brattle Street are old fashioned. 
They did very well in their day. Our fathers 
wxre simple-minded people, and the tunes fitted 
them. But our fathers are gone, and they ought 
to have taken their baggage with them. It is a 
nuisance to have those old tunes floating around 
the church, and sometime, just as we have got 
the music as fine as an opera, to have a revival 
of religion come, and some new-born soul break 
out in ^*Eock of Ages, Cleft for Me!" till the 
organist stamps the pedal with indignation, and 
the leader of the tune gets red in the face and 
swears. Certainly anything that makes a man 
swear is wrong — ergo, congregational singing is 
wrong. ' * Quod erat demonstrandum ; ' ' wh ich, be- 
ing translated, means ^* Plain as the nose on a 
man's face." 

What right have people to sing who know noth- 
ing about rhythmics, melodies, dynamics? The 



The Massacre of Chiirch Music, loi 

old tunes ought to be ashamed of themselves when 
compared with our modern beauties. Let Dun- 
dee, and Portuguese Hymn, and Silver Street hide 
their heads beside what we heard not long ago 
in a church — just where I shall not tell. The 
minister read the hymn beautifully. The organ 
began, and the choir sang, as near as I could 
understand, as follows: 

Oo — aw — gee — bah 

Ah — me — la — he 
— pah — sah — dah 

Wo — haw — gee-e-e-e. 

My wife, seated beside me, did not like the 
music. But I said : ' * What beautiful sentiment ! 
My dear, it is a pastoral. You might have known 
that from * Wo-haw-gee ! ' You have had your 
taste ruined by attending the Brooklyn Taber- 
nacle. ' ^ The choir repeated the last line of the 
hymn four times. Then the prima donna leaped 
on to the first line, and slipped, and fell on to 
the second, and that broke and let her through 
into the third. The other voices came in to pick 
her up, and got into a grand wrangle, and the 
bass and the soprano had it for about ten seconds ; 
but the soprano beat (women always do), and the 
bass rolled down into the cellar, and the soprano 
went up into the garret, but the latter kept on 
squalling as though the bass, in leaving her, had 
wickedly torn out all her back hair, I felt 
anxious about the soprano, and looked back to 
see if she had fainted; but found her reclining in 
the arms of a young man who looked strong 
enough to take care of her. 

Now, I admit that we cannot all have such 
things in our churches. It costs like sixty. In 
the Church of the Holy Bankak it costs one hun- 
dred dollars to have sung that communion 
piece : 



I02 Around the Tea-table. 

**Ye wretched, hungry, starving poor!" 

But let us come as near to it as we can. The 
tune **Pisgah'' has been standing long enough on 
'* Jordan's stormy banks.'' Let it pass over and 
get out of the wet weather. Good-bye, * ^ Anti och, ' ' 
^^ Harwell" and ^ ' Boylston. " Good-bye till w^c 
meet in glory. 

But if the prescription of new tunes does not 
end congregational singing, I have another sug- 
gestion. Get an irreligious choir, and put them 
in a high balcony back of the congregation. I 
know choirs who are made up chiefly of religious 
people, or those, at least, respectful for sacred 
things. That will never do, if you want to kill 
the music. The theatrical troupe are not busy 
elsewhere on Sabbath, and you can get them at 
half price to sing the praises of the Lord. Meet 
them in the green room at the close of the ^ * Black 
Crook" and secure them. They will come to 
€hurch with opera-glasses, which will bring the 
minister so near to them they can, from their 
high perch, look clear down his throat and see 
his sermon before it is delivered. They will 
make excellent poetry on Deacon Goodsoul as he 
carries around the missionary box. They will 
write dear little notes to Gonzaldo, asking him 
how his cold is and how he likes gum-drops. 
Without interfering with the worship below, they 
can discuss the comparative fashionableness of 
the ** basque" and the ''polonaise," the one lady 
vowing she thinks the first style is ''horrid," 
and the other saying she would rather die than 
be seen in the latter; all this while the chorister 
is gone out during sermon to refresh himself with 
a mint- julep, hastening back in time to sing the 
last hymn. How much like heaven it will be 
when, at the close of a solemn service, we are 
favored with snatches from Verdi's "Trovatore, " 



The Massacre of Church Music, 103 

Meyerbeer's ** Huguenots'^ and Bellini's "Son- 
nambula, ' ' from such artists as 

Mademoiselle Squintelle, 

Prima Donna Soprano, from Grand Opera House, 

Paris. 

Signor Bombastani, 

Basso Buffo, from Royal Italian Opera. 

Carl Schneiderine. , 

First Baritone, of His Majesty's Theatre, Berlin. 

If after three months of taking these two pre- 
scriptions the congregational singing is not thor- 
oughly dead, send me a letter directed to my 
name, with the title of 0. F. M. (Old Fogy in 
Music), and I will, on the receipt thereof, write 
another prescription, w^hich I am sure will kill 
it dead as a door nail, and that is the deadest 
thing in all history. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
THE BATTLE OF PEW AND PULPIT. 

Two more sermons unloaded, and Monday 
morning I went sauntering down town, ready for 
almost anything. I met several of my clerical 
friends going to a ministers^ meeting. I do not 
often go there, for I have found that some of the 
clerical meetings are gridirons where they roast 
clergymen who do not do things just as we do 
them. I like a Presbyterian gridiron no better 
than a Methodist one, and prefer to either of 
them an old-fashioned spit, such as 1 saw one 
summer in Oxford, England, where the rabbit 
is kept turning round before a slow fire, in blessed 
state of itinerancy, the rabbit thinking he is 
merely taking a ride, while he is actually roast- 
ing. 

As on the Monday morning I spoke of I was 
passing down the street, I heard high words in a 
church. What could it be? Was it the minister, 
and the sexton, and the trustees fighting? I went 
in to see, when, lo ! I found that the Pew and 
the Pulpit were bantering each other at a great 
rate, and seemed determined to tell each one the 
other's faults. I stood still as a mouse that 1 
might hear all that was said, and my presence 
not be noticed. 

The Pew was speaking as I went in, and said 
to the Pulpit, in anything but a reverential tone : 
**Why don't you speak out on other days as well 
as you do to-day? The fact is, I never knew a 
Pulpit that could not be heard when it was 
thoroughly mad. But when you give out the 
hymn on Sabbaths, I cannot tell whether it is 

104 



The Battle of Pe7v and Pulpit, 105 

the seventieth or the hundredth. When you read 
the chapter, you are half through with it before 
I know whether it is Exodus or Deuteronomy. 
Why do you begin your sermon in so low a key? 
If the introduction is not worth hearing, it is 
not worth delivering. Are you explaining the 
text? If so, the Lord's meaning is as important 
as anything you will have in your sermon. Throw 
back your shoulders, open your mouth! Make 
your voice strike against the opposite w^all ! Pray 
not only for a clean heart, but for stout lungs. 
I have nearly worn out my ears trying to catch 
your utterances. When a captain on a battlefield 
gives an order, the company all hear ; and if you 
want to be an ofllcer in the Lord's army, do not 
mumble your words. The elocution of Christ's 
sermon is described when we are told he opened 
his mouth and taught them — that is, spoke dis- 
tinctly, as those cannot who keep their lips half 
closed. Do you think it a sign of modesty to 
speak so low? I think the most presuming thing 
on earth for a Pulpit to do is to demand that an 
audience sit quiet when they cannot hear, simply 
looking. The handsomest minister I ever saw is 
not worth looking at for an hour and a half at a 
stretch. The truth is that I have often been so 
provoked with your inarticulate speech that I 
would have got up and left the church, had it not 
been for the fact that I am nailed fast, and my 
appearance on the outside on a Sabbath-day, 
walking up and down, would have brought 
around me a crowd of unsanctified boys to gaze 
at me, a poor church pew on its travels. ' ' 

The Pulpit responded in anything but a pious 
tone: **The reason you do not hear is that your 
mind on Sundays is full of everything but the 
gospel. You work so hard during the week that 
you rob the Lord of his twenty-four hours. The 
man who works on Sunday as wxll as the rest of 



io6 Around the Tea-table, 

the week is no worse than you who abstain on 
that day, because your excessive devotion to 
business during the week kills your Sunday ; and 
a dead Sunday is no Sunday at all. You throw 
yourself into church as much as to say, ^Here, 
Lord, I ain too tired to work any more for my- 
self ; you can have the use of me while I am 
resting!' Besides that, O Pew! you have a 
miserable habit. Even when you can hear my 
voice on the Sabbath and are wide awake, you 
have a way of putting your head down or shut- 
ting your eyes, and looking as if your soul had 
vacated the premises for six weeks. You are one 
of those hearers who think it is pious to look 
dull ; and you think that the Pew on the other 
side the aisle is an old sinner because he hunches 
the Pew behind him, and smiles when the truth 
hits the mark. If you want me to speak out, it 
is your duty not only to be wide awake, but to 
3ook 80. Give us the benefit of your two eyes. 
There is one of the elders whose eyes I have 
never caught while speaking, save once, and that 
was when I was preaching from Psalm cxiii. 12, 
^ They compassed me about like bees,' and by 
a strange coincidence a bumble-bee got into 
church, and I had my attention divided between 
my text and the annoying insect, which flew 
about like an illustration I could not catch. A 
dull Pew is often responsible for a dull Pulpit. 
Do not put your head down on the back of the 
seat in front, pretending you are very much 
affected with the sermon, for we all know you 
are napping. ' ' 

The Pew: *'If you want me to be alert, give 
me something fresh and startling. Your sermons 
all sound alike. It don't make any difference 
where you throw the net, you never fish up any- 
thing but moss-bunkers. "You are always talk- 
ing about stale things. Why don't you give us 



The Battle of Pew and Pulpit, 107 

a touch of learned discussion, such as the people 
hear every Sunday in the church of Reverend 
Doctor Heavyasbricks, when, with one eye on 
heaven and the other on the old man in the 
gallery, he speaks of the Tridentine theory of 
original sin, and Patristic Soteriology, Mediaeval 
Trinitarianism, and Antiochian Anthropology? 
Why do you not give us some uncommon words, 
and' instead of booking back upon your subject,' 
sometimes 'recapitulate,' and instead of talking 
about a man's 'peculiarities,' mention his 4diot- 
sin-crasies, ' and describe the hair as the capillary 
adornment ; and instead of speaking of a thing as 
tied together, say it was inosculated.' " 

The Pulpit : ' ' You keep me so poor I cannot 
buy the books necessary to keep me fresh. After 
the babies are clothed, and the table is provided 
for, and the wardrobe supplied, my purse is 
empty, and you know the best carpenter cannot 
make good shingles without tools. Better pay 
up your back salary instead of sitting there howl- 
ing at me. You eased your conscience by sub- 
scribing for the support of the gospel, but the 
liOrd makes no record of what a man subscribes ; 
he waits to see whether he pays. The poor widow 
with the two mites is applauded in Scripture 
because she paid cash down. I have always noticed 
that you Pews make a big noise about Pulpit de- 
ficiencies, just in proportion to the little you do. 
The fifty cents you pay is only premium on your 
policy of five dollars' worth of grumbling. O crit- 
ical Pew I you had better scour the brass number 
on your own door before you begin to polish the 
silver knob on mine. " 

The Pew: ^'I think it is time for you to go 
away. I am glad that conference is coming. I 
shall see the bishop, and have you removed to 
some other part of the Lord's vineyard. You 
are too plain a Pulpit for such an elegant Pew. 



io8 Around the Tea-table, 

Just look at your big hands and feet. We want 
a spiritual guide whose fingers taper to a fine 
point, and one who could wear, if need be, a 
lady's shoe. Get out, with your great paws and 
clodhoppers ! We want in this church a Pulpit 
that will talk about heaven, and make no allusion 
to the other place. I have a highly educated 
nose, and can stand the^ smell of garlic and 
assafoetida better than brimstone. We w^ant an 
oleaginous minister, commonly called oily. We 
want him distinguished for his unctuosity. 
We want an ecclesiastical scent-bag, or, as you 
might call him, a heavenly nosegay, perfect in 
every respect, his ordinary sneeze as good as a 
doxology. If he cry during some emotional part 
of his discourse, let it not be an old-fashioned 
cry, with big hands or coat sleeve sopping up the 
tears, but let there be just two elegant tears, one 
from each eye, rolling down parallel into a pocket- 
handkerchief richly embroidered by the sewing 
society, and inscribed with the names of all the 
young ladies' Bible class. If he kneel before 
sermon, let it not be a coming down like a soul 
in want, but on one knee, so artistically done 
that the foot shall show the twelve-dollar patent 
leather shoe, while the aforesaid pocket-handker- 
chief is just peeping from the coat pocket, to see 
if the ladies who made it are all there — the whole 
scene a religious tableau. We want a Pulpit that 
will not get us into a tearing-down revival, where 
the people go shouting and twisting about, regard- 
less of carpets and fine effects, but a revival that 
shall be born in a band-box, and wrapped in 
rufiles, and lie on a church rug, so still that 
nobody will know it is there. If we could have 
such a Pulpit as that, all my fellow-Pews would 
join me, and we would give it a handsome sup- 
port; yes, we would pay him; if we got just 
what we want, we could afford to give, in case 



The Battle of Pew aiid Pulpit. 109 

he were thoroughly eloquent, Demosthenic and 
bewitching — I am quite certain we could, although 
I should not want myself to be held responsible ; 
yes, he should have eight hundred dollars a year, 
and that is seven hundred and sixty dollars more 
than Milton got for his ^Paradise Lost,' about 
which one of his learned contemporaries wrote: 
*The old blind schoolmaster, John Milton, hath 
published a tedious poem on the fall of man ; if 
its length be not considered a merit, it has no 
other. ' Nothing spoils ministers like too big a 
salary. Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked ; if it 
had not been for the wax and the fat, he would 
not have kicked. Sirloin steaks and mince pies 
are too rich for ministers. Put these men down 
on catfish and flounders, as were the fishermen 
apostles. Too much oats makes horses frisky, 
and a minister high-fed is sure to get his foot 
over the shaft. If we want to keep our pulpits 
spiritual, we must keep them poor. Blessed are 
the poor!" 

' ^ Stop ! stop ! ' ' cried the Pulpit ; and it seemed 
to rise higher than before, and to tremble from 
head to foot with excitement, and the ba^nisters 
to twist as if to fly in indignation at the Pew, 
and the plush on the book-board to look red as 
fire ; and seeing there was going to be a collision 
between Pulpit and Pew, I ran up the aisle and 
got between them (they were wide enough apart 
to allow me to get in), and I cried, ^'Silence! 
This is great talk for a church. Pulpits ought 
not to scold, and Pews ought not to grumble. As 
far as I can see, you are both to blame. Better 
shake hands and pray for a better spirit. It 
wants more than a bishop to settle this difficulty. 
The Lord Almighty alone can make Pulpit and 
Pew what they ought to be. You both need to 
be baptized over again!" Then, taking up a 
silver bowl that stood on the communion table. 



no 



Around the Tea-table. 



half full of the water yesterday used at a babe's 
christening, I stood between the belligerents, and 
sprinkled Pew and Pulpit with a Christian bap- 
tism, in the name of the Father, and the Son, 
and the Holy Ghost. And when I ^ot through, 
I could not tell whether Pew or Pulpit said Amen 
the louder. 



CHAPTER XX. 
THE DEVIL'S GKIST-MILL. 

The above name has been given to one of the 
geysers of California, that group of boiling 
springs, now famous. Indeed, the whole region 
has been baptized with Satanic nomenclature. 

The guide showed us what he called the 
''Devil's Mush-pot," the ''Devil's Pulpit,*' the 
"Devil's Machine Shop, " and, hearing a shrill 
whistle in the distance, we were informed it 
was the "Devil's Tea-kettle." Seeing some 
black water rushing from a fountain, from which 
the people of the neighborhood and tourists dip 
up genuine ink, we were told it was the "DeviPa 
Ink-stand." Indeed, you are prepared for this 
on the. Pacific Railroad, as your guide book 
points you to the "Devil's Gate," and the 
^'DeviPs Slide," and the "Devil's Peak." 

We protest against this surrender of all the 
geysers to the arch demon. All the writers talk 
of the place as infernal. We do not believe this 
place so near to hell as to heaven. We doubt if 
Satan ever comes here. He knows enough of hot 
climates, by experience, to fly from the hiss of 
these subterraneous furnaces. Standing amid the 
roaring, thundering, stupendous wonder of two 
hundred spouting water springs, we felt like cry- 
ing out, "Great and marvelous are thy works, 
Lord God almighty ! ' ' 

Let all the chemists and geologists of the world 
come and see the footstep of God in crystals of 
alum and sulphur and salt. Here is the chemist's 
shop of the continent. Enough black indelible- 
ink rushes out of this well, with terrific plash^ 

III 



112 Around the Tea-table, 

to supply all the scribes of the world. There are 
infinite fortunes for those who will delve for the 
borax, nitric and sulphuric acid, soda, magnesia 
and other valuables. Enough sulphur here to 
purify the blood of the race, or in gunpowder to 
kill it ; enough salt to savor all the vegetables of 
the world. Its acid water, which waits only 
for a little sugar to make it delicious lemonade, 
may yet be found in all the drug stores of the 
country. The water in one place roars like a 
steamboat discharging its steam. Your boots 
curl with the heat as you stand on the hot rocks, 
looking. Almost anywhere a thrust of your 
cane will evoke a gush of steam. Our ther- 
mometer, plunged into one spring, answered one 
hundred and seventy-five degrees of heat. Thrust 
in the * 'Witch's Caldron,'' it asserted two hun- 
dred and fifteen degrees. * 'The Ink-stand" de- 
clared itself two hundred degrees. An artificial 
whistle placed at the mouth of one of these gey- 
sers may be heard miles away. You get a hot 
bath without paying for it. The guide warns 
you off the crust in certain places, lest you at 
the same moment be drowned and boiled. Here 
an egg cooks hard in three minutes. 

The whole scene is unique and incomparable. 
The Yosemite makes us think of the Alps; San 
Francisco reminds us of Chicago ; Foss, the stage 
•driver, hurling his passengers down the mountain 
at breakneck speed, suggests the driver of an 
Alpine diligence; Hutchings' mountain horse, 
that stumbled and fell flat upon us, suggested 
our mule-back experiences in T^te Noir Pass of 
Switzerland ; but the geysers remind us of noth- 
ing that we ever saw, or ever expect to see. They 
have a voice, a bubble, a smoke, a death-rattle, 
peculiar to themselves. No photographist can 
picture them, no words describe them, no fancy 
sketch them. 



The Devils Grist-mill, 113 

You may visit them by either of two routes; 
but do not take the advice of Foss, the celebrated 
stage driver. You ought to go by one route, and 
return the other ; yet Foss has made thousands of 
travelers believe that the only safe and interest- 
ing way to return is the way they go — namely, by 
his route. They who take his counsel miss some 
of the grandest scenery on the continent. Any 
stage driver who by his misrepresentations would 
shut a tourist out of the entrancing beauties of 
the '^Eussian Valley" ought to be thrashed with 
his own raw-hide. We heard Foss bamboozling 
a group of travelers with the idea that on the 
other route the roads were dangerous, the horses 
poor, the accommodations wretched and the 
scenery worthless. We came up in time to com- 
bat the statement with our own happy experiences 
of the Russian Valley, and to save his passengers 
from the oft-repeated imposition. 

And thus I have suggested the chief annoyance 
of California travel. The rivalries of travel are 
so great that it is almost impossible to get accurate 
information. The stage drivers, guides and hotel 
proprietors, for the most part, are financially 
interested in different routes. Going to Yosemite 
Valley by the ' ' Calaveras route, ' ' from the office 
in San Francisco where you buy your ticket to the 
end of your journey, everybody assures you that 
J. M. Hutchings, one of the hotel keepers of 
Yosemite, is a scholar, a poet, a gentleman and a 
Christian, and that to him all the world is indebted 
for the opening of the valley. But if you go in 
by the ^^ Mariposa route," then from the office 
where you get your ticket, along by all the way 
stations and through the mountain passes, you 
are assured that Mr. Liedig, the hotel keeper 
of Yosemite, is the poet and Christian, and 
that J. M. Hutchings aforesaid is a nobody, a 
blower, a dead beat, the chief impediment to the 



114 Around the Tea-table, 

interests of Yosemite — or, to use a generic term, a 
scalawag. 

The fact is that no one can afford in California 
to take the same route twice, for each one has a 
glory of its own. If a traveler have but one day 
for the Louvre Gallery, he cannot afford to spend 
it all in one corridor ; and as California is one 
great picture gallery, filled with the masterpieces 
of Him who paints with sunshine and dew and 
fire, and sculptures with chisel of hurricane and 
thunderbolt, we cannot afford to pass more than 
once before any canvas or marble. 

But whatever route you choose for the ^*Hot 
Springs, ' ' * and whatever pack of stage driver 
yams you accept, know this — that in all this 
matcliless California, with climate of perpetual 
summer, the sky cloudless and the wind blowing 
six months from the genial west ; the open field 
a safe threshing floor for the grandest wheat har- 
vests of the world; nectarines and pomegranates 
and pears in abundance that perish for lack of 
enough hands to pick ; by a product in one year 
of six million five hundred thousand gallons of 
wine proving itself the vineyard of this hemi- 
sphere; African callas, and wild verbenas, and 
groves of oleander and nutmeg ; the hills red with 
five thousand cattle in a herd, and white with a 
hundred and fifty thousand sheep in a flock ; the 
neighboring islands covered with wild birds' 
eggs, that enrich the markets^ or sounding with 
the constant *^yoi-hoi,'' ''yoi-hoi,'' of the sea- 
lions that tumble over them ; a State that might 
be called the ''Central Park" of the world; the 
gulches of gold pouring more than fifty million 
of dollars a year into the national lap; lofty 
lakes, like Tahoe, set crystalline in the crown of 
the mountain ; waterfalls so weird that you do 
not wonder that the Indians think that who- 
soever points his finger at them must die, and in 



The DeviV s Grist-inilL 115 

one place the water plunging from a height more 
than sixteen times greater than Niagara, — even 
in such a country of marvels as this, there is 
nothing that makes you ask more questions, or 
bow in profounder awe, or come away with more 
interesting reminiscences than the world renowned 
California geysers. 

There is a bang at your bed -room door at five 
o'clock in the morning, rousing you to go up and 
explore them ; and after spending an hour or two 
in wandering among them, you come back to the 
breakfast prepared by the model landlord of Cali- 
fornia, jolly, obliging, intelligent, reasonable. 
As you mount the stage for departure you give 
him a warm shake of the hand, and suggest that 
it would be a grand thing if some one with a 
vein of poetry in his mind and the faith of God 
in his heart would come round some day, and 
passing among the geysers with a sprinkle of 
hot steam, would baptize them with a Christian 
name. 

Let us ascribe to Satan nothing that is grand, 
or creative, or wise. He could not make one of 
these grains of alum. He could not blow up one 
of these bubbles on the spring. He does some 
things that seem smart; but taking him all in 
all, he is the biggest fool in the universe. 

If the devil wants to boil his '^Tea-kettle," or 
stir his ** Mush-pot, '* or whirl his *' Grist-mill ' ' 
let him do it in his own territory. Meanwhile, 
let the water and the fire and the vapor, at the 
lift of David's orchestral baton, praise the Lord! 



CHAPTER XXI. 
THE CONDUCTOR'S DREAM. 

He had been on the train all day, had met all 
kinds of people, received all sorts of treatment, 
punctured all kinds of tickets, shouted '^All 
out!'* and **A11 aboard!" till throat, and head, 
and hand, and foot were weary. It would be a 
long while before we would get to another depot, 
and so he sagged down in the corner of the car to 
sleep. He was in the most uncomfortable position 
possible. The wind blew in his neck, his arm 
was hung over the back of the seat, he had one 
foot under him, and his knee pressing hard 
against a brass hinge. In that twisted and con- 
voluted position he fell asleep, and soon began to 
dream. 

It seemed to him, in his sleep, that the car 
was full of disagreeables. Here was a man who 
persisted in having a window up, while the rain 
and sleet drove in. There was a man who occu- 
pied the whole seat, and let the ladies stand. 
Here sat a man smoking three poor cigars at 
once, and expectorating into the beaver hat of 
the gentleman in front. Yonder was a burglar 
on his way to jail, and opposite a murderer going 
to the gallows. He thought that pickpockets 
took his watch and ruffians refused to pay their 
fare. A woman traveling alone shot at him a 
volley of questions: ^'Say, conductor, how long 
before we will get to the Junction?'' '*Are you 
sure we have not passed it?" ^^Do you always 
stop there?" ''What time is it?" Madam, do 
keep quiet ! * ' None of your impudence ! " ' ^ How 
far from here to the Junction?" **Do you think 

ii6 



The Condudof s Dream. 117 

that other train will wait?'^ ^^Do yon think we 
will get there in time?" ''Say, conductor, how 
many miles yet?" *^Are you looking out?" 
**Now, you won't let me go past, will you?" 
''Here! conductor, here! Help me out with my 
carpet bag, and band-box, and shawl, and um- 
brella, and this bundle of sausage and head- 
cheese. " What was worse, the train got going 
one hundred and fifty miles an hour, and pull- 
ing the connecting rope, it broke, and the cars 
got off the track, and leaped on again, and the 
stove changed places with the wood box, and 
things seemed going to terrible split and unmiti- 
gated smash. The cities flew past. The brakes 
were powerless. The whistle grew into a fiend's 
shriek. Then the train began to slow up, and 
sheeted ghosts swung lanterns along the track, 
and the cars rolled into a white depot, which 
turned out to be a great marble tomb ; and look- 
ing back to see his passengers, they were all 
stark dead, frozen in upright horror to the car 
backs. 

Hearing by the man's snore, and seeing by his 
painful look, he was having an awful dream, we 
tapped him on the shoulder and said, ^'Con- 
ductor ! Turn over that seat, and take my shawl, 
and stretch yourself out, and have a comfortable 
nap." "Thank you, sir," he said, and imme- 
diately sprawled himself out in the easiest way 
possible. He began his slumbers just as an ex- 
press train glides gracefully out of Pittsburg 
depot; then went at it more earnestly, lifted all 
the brakes, put on all the steam, and in ^^i% 
minutes was under splendid headway. He began 
a second dream, but it was the opposite of the 
first. He thought that he had just stepped on 
the platform of his car, and a lady handed him 
a bouquet fresh from the hot house. A long line 
of railroad presidents and superintendents had 



1 1 8 A roM7id the Tea-ta ble, 

come to the depot to see him off, and tipped their 
hats as he glided out into the open air. The car 
was an improvement on Pullman's best. Three 
golden goblets stood at the end, and every time 
he turned the spigot of the water cask, it foamed 
soda-water — vanilla if you turned it one way, 
strawberry if you turned it the other. The spit- 
toon was solid silver, and had never been used 
but once, when a child threw into it an orange 
peeling. The car was filled with lords and 
duchesses, who rose and bowed as he passed 
through to collect the fare. They all insisted 
on paying twice as much as was demanded, 
telling him to give half to the company and keep 
the rest for himself. Stopped a few minutes at 
Jolly Town, Glee vi lie and Velvet Junction, mak- 
ing connection with the Grand Trunk and Pan- 
Handle route for Paradise. But when the train 
halted there was no jolt, and when it started 
there was no jerk. The track was always clear, 
no freight train in the way, no snow bank to be 
shoveled — train always on time. Banks of roses 
on either side, bridges with piers of bronze, and 
flagmen clad in cloth-of-gold. The train went 
three hundred miles the hour, but without any 
risk, for all the passengers were insured against 
accident in a company that was willing to pay 
four times the price of what any neck was worth. 
The steam whistle breathed as sweetly as any 
church choir chanting its opening piece. Nobody 
asked the conductor to see his time-table, for 
the only dread any passenger had was that of 
coming to the end of its journey. 

As night came on the self-adjusting couches 
spread themselves on either side; patent boot- 
jacks rolled up and took your boots off ; unseen 
fingers tucked the damask covers all about you, 
and the porter took your pocket-book to keep till 
morning, returning it then with twice what you 



The Conductor' s Dream, 119 

had in it at nightfall. After a while the train 
slackens to one hundred and seventy- five miles 
an hour, and the conductor, in his dream, an- 
nounces that they are coming near the terminus. 
More brakes are dropped and they are running 
but ninety miles the hour ; and some one, look- 
ing out of the window, says, ^ ' How slow we go ! ' * 
^ ' l^es, ' ' says the conductor, ^ ^ we are holding up. ' ' 
Now they have almost stopped, going at only 
seventy miles the hour. The long line of depot 
lamps are flashing along the track. On the plat- 
form of the station are the lovers who are wait- 
ing for their betrothed, and parents who have 
come down to greet their children, returned with 
a fortune, and wives who have not been able to 
eat or drink since their spouses went away three 
weeks before. As the cushioned train flashes 
into the depot and stops, wedding bells peal, and 
the gong of many banquets sounds, and white 
arms are flung about necks, reckless of mistake, 
and innumerable percussions of afi*ection echo 
through the depot, so crisp and loud that they 
wake the conductor, who thought that the bois- 
terous smack was on his own cheek, but finds 
that he is nothing but a bachelor railroad man, 
with a lantern, at midnight getting out into a 
snow bank. 

Application : Get an easy position when you 
sleep, if you have any choice between angels and 
gorgons. At midnight, seizing a chair, I ran into 
the next room, resolving to kill, at the first 
stroke, the ruflfian who was murdering a member 
of my household. But there w^as no ruffian. The 
sweet girl had, during the day, been reading of 
St. Bartholomew's massacre, and was now lying 
on her back, dreaming it all over again. When 
dreams find anyone lying flat on the back, they 
cry out, **Here is a flat surface on which to skate 
and play ball, ' ' and from scalp to toe they sport 



I20 Around the Tea-table, 

themselves. The hardest nag in all the world to 
ride is the nightmare. Many think that sleep is 
lost time. But the style of your work will be 
mightily affected by the style of your slumber. 
Sound Asleep is sister of Wide Awake. Adam 
was the only man who ever lost a rib by napping 
too soundly; but when he woke up, he found 
that, instead of the twelve ribs with which he 
started, he really had nigh two dozen. By this 
I prove that sleep is not subtraction, but addition. 
This very night may that angel put balm on both 
your eyelids five minutes after you touch the 
pillow 1 



CHAPTER XXII. 
PUSH & PULL. 

We have long been acquainted with a business 
firm whose praises have never been sung, I doubt 
whether their names are ever mentioned on Ex- 
change. They seem to be doing more business 
and have more branch houses than the Stewarts 
or Lippincotts. You see their names almost 
everywhere on the door. It is the firm of Push 
& Pull. They generally have one of their part- 
ners' names on outside of the door, and the 
other on the inside: ^^Push'^ on the outside and 
''Pull" on the inside. I have found their busi- 
ness-houses in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, 
Boston, London and Edinburgh. It is under my 
eye, whether I go to buy a hat, a shawl, or a paper of 
pins, or watch, or ream of foolscap. They are 
in all kinds of business ; and from the way they 
branch out, and put up new stores, and multiply 
their signboards on the outside and inside of 
doors, I conclude that the largest business firm on 
earth to-day is Push & Pull. 

When these gentlemen join the church, they 
make things go along vigorously. The roof stops 
leaking; a new carpet blooms on the church 
floor; the fresco is retouched; the high pulpit is 
lowered till it comes into the same climate with 
the pew ; strangers are courteously seated ; the 
salary of the minister is paid before he gets hope- 
lessly in debt to butcher and baker; and all is 
right, financially and spiritually, because Push & 
Pull have connected themselves with the enter- 
prise. 

A new parsonage is to be built, but the move- 

121 



122 Around the Tea-table, 

ment does not get started. Eight or ten men of 
«low circulation of blood and stagnant liver put 
their hands on the undertaking, but it will not 
budge. The proposed improvement is about to 
fail when Push comes up behind it and gives it 
a shove, and Pull goes in front and lays into the 
traces ; and, lo ! the enterprise advances, the goal 
is reached! And all the people who had talked 
about the improvement, but done nothing toward 
it, invite the strangers who come to town to go 
up and see **our'' parsonage. 

Push & Pull are wide-awake men. They never 
stand round with their hands in their pockets, 
.as though feeling for money that they cannot 
find. They have made up their minds that there 
is a work for them to do ; and without wasting 
any time in reverie, they go to work and do it. 
They start a * ^ life insurance company. ' ' Push is 
the president, and Pull the secretarjr. Before 
you know it, all the people are running in to 
have their lungs sounded, and to tell how many 
times they have had the rheumatism ; how ola 
they are; whether they ever had fits; and at 
what age their father and mother expired ; and 
putting all the family secrets on paper, and pay- 
ing Push & Pull two hundred dollars to read it. 
When this firm starts a clothing house, they 
make a great stir in the city. They advertise in 
such strong and emphatic way that the people are 
haunted with the matter, and dream about it, 
and go round the block to avoid that store door, 
lest they be persuaded in and induced to buy 
something they cannot aff'ord. But some time 
the man forgets himself, and finds he is in front 
of the new clothing store, and, at the first glance 
of goods in the show window, is tempted to enter. 
Push comes up behind him, and Pull comes up 
before him, and the man is convinced of the 
ehabbiness of his present appearance — that his 



Push & Pull, 123 

hat will not do, that his coat and vest and all the 
rest of his clothes, clean down to his shoes, are 
unfit; and before one week is past, a boy runs 
up the steps of this customer with a pasteboard 
box marked, ^'From the clothing establishment 
of Push & Pull. C. O. D." 

These men can do anything they set their hands 
to — publish a newspaper, lay out a street, build 
a house, control a railroad, manage a church, 
revolutionize a city. In fact, any two industrious, 
honorable, enterprising men can accomplish won- 
ders. One does the outdoor work of the store, 
and the other the indoor work. One leads, the 
other follows ; but both working in one direction, 
all obstacles are leveled before them. 

I wish that more of our young men could 
graduate from the store of Push & Pull. We 
have tens of thousands of young men doing noth- 
ing. There must be work somewhere if they 
will only do it. They stand round, with soap 
locks and scented pocket-handkerchiefs, tipping 
their hats to the ladies ; while, instead of wait- 
ing for business to come to them, they ought to 
go to work and make a business. Here is the 
ladder of life. The most of those who start at 
the top of the ladder spend their life in coming 
down, while those who start at the bottom may 
go up. Those who are born with a gold spoon in 
their mouth soon lose the spoon. The two school 
bullies that used to flourish their silk pocket- 
handkerchiefs in my face, and with their ivory- 
handled, four-bladed knives punch holes through 
my kite — one of them is in the penitentiary, and 
the other ought to be. 

Young man, the road of life is up hill, and 
our load heavy. Better take off your kid gloves, 
and patent leathers, and white vest, and ask 
Push, with his stout shoulder, and Pull, with 
his strong grip, to help you. Energy, pluck, 



124 Around the Tea-table, 

courage, obstinate determination are to be cul- 
tured. Eat strong meat, drop pastries, stop read- 
ing sickly novelettes, pray at both ends of the 
day and in the middle, look a man in the eye 
when you talk to him, and if you want to be a 
giant keep your head out of the lap of indulgences 
that would put a pair of shears through your locks. 

If you cannot get the right kind of business 
partner, marry a good, honest wife. Fine cheeks 
and handsome curls are very well, but let them 
be mere incidentals. Let our young men select 
practical women; there are a few of them left. 
With such a one you can get on with almost all 
heavy loads of life. You will be Pull, and 
she Push; and if you do not get the house 
built and the fortune established, send me word, 
and I will tear this article up in such small pieces 
that no one will ever be able to find it. 

Life is earnest work, and cannot be done with 
the tips of the fingers. We want more crowbars 
and fewer gold toothpicks. The obstacles before 
you cannot be looked out of countenance by a 
quizzing glass. Let sloth and softliness go to the 
wall, but three cheers for Push & Rill, and 
all their branch business houses ! 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
BOSTONIANS. 

We ran up to the Boston anniversaries to cast 
our vote with those good people who are in that 
city on the side of the right. We like to go to 
the modern Athens two or three times a year. 
Among other advantages, Boston always soothes 
our nerves. It has a quieting effect upon us. 
The people there are better satisfied than any 
people we know of. Judging from a few restless 
spirits who get on some of the erratic platforms 
of that city, and who fret and fume about things 
in general, the world has concluded that Boston 
is at unrest. But you may notice that the most 
of the restless people who go there are imported 
speakers, whom Boston hires to come once a 
year and do for her all the necessary fretting. 

The genuine Bostonian is satisfied. He rises 
moderately early, goes to business without any 
especial haste, dresses comfortably, talks deliber- 
ately, lunches freely, and goes home to his 
family at plausible hours. He would like to 
have the world made better, but is not going to 
make himself sick in trying to cure the moral 
ailments of others. 

The genuine Bostonian is, for the most part, 
pleased with himself, has confidence that the big 
elm will last another hundred years, keeps his 
patriotism fresh by an occasional walk near the 
meat market under Faneuil Hall, and reads the 
*' Atlantic Monthly." We believe there is less 
fidgeting in Boston than in any city of the 
country. We think that the average of human 
life must be longer there than in most cities. 

125 



126 Around the Tea-table, 

Dyspepsia is a rarity ; for when a mutton cxiop 
is swallowed of a Bostonian it gives up, knowing 
that there is no need of fighting against such 
inexorable digestion. 

The ladies of Boston have more color in their 
cheeks than those of many cities, and walk as 
though they would live to get round the next 
corner. It is not so fashionable to be delicate. 
They are robust in mind and always ready for an 
argument. State what you consider an indisput- 
able proposition, and they will say : * * Yes, but 
then — " They are not afraid to attack the 
theology of a minister, or the jurisprudence of a 
lawyer, or the pharmacy of a doctor. If you do 
not look out, the Boston woman will throw off 
her shawl and upset your logic in a public meet- 
ing. 

We like the men and women of Boston. They 
have opinions about everything — some of them 
adverse to your own, but even in that case so well 
expressed that, in admiration for the rhetoric, 
you excuse the divergence of sentiment. We 
never found a half-and-half character in Boston. 
The people do not wait till they see which way 
the smoke of their neighbors' chimneys blows 
before they make up their own minds. 

The most conspicuous book on the parlor table 
of the hotels of other cities is a book of engrav- 
ings or a copy of the Bible. In some of the Bos- 
ton hotels, the prominent book on the parlor 
table is * ^ Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. ' ' You 
may be left in doubt about the Bostonian's 
character, but need not doubt his capacity to 
parse a sentence, or spell without any resem- 
blance of blunder the word * idiosyncrasy. " 

Boston, having made up its mind, sticks to it. 
Many^ years ago it decided that the religious 
societies ought to hold a public anniversary^ in 
June, and it never wavers. New York is tired 



Bostonians. 127 

of these annual demonstrations, and goes else- 
where; but in the early part of every June, 
Boston puts its umbrella under its arm and starts- 
for Tremont Temple, or Music Hall, determined 
to find an anniversary, and finds it. You see on 
the stage the same spectacles that shone on the 
speakers ten years ago, and the same bald heads, 
for the solid men of Boston got in the way of 
wearing their hair thin in front a quarter of a 
century ago, and all the solid men of Boston 
will, for the next century, wear their hair thin 
in front. 

There are fewer dandies in Boston than in 
most cities. Clothes, as a general thing, do not 
make fun of the people they sit on. The humps 
on the ladies' backs are not within two feet of 
being as high as in some of the other cities, and 
a dromedary could look at them without thinking 
itself caricatured. You see more of the out- 
landishness of fashion in one day on Broadway 
than in a week on any one street of Boston. 
Doubtless, Boston is just as proud as New York, 
but her pride is that of brains, and those, from 
the necessities of the case, are hidden. 

Go out on the fashionable drive of Boston, and 
you find that the horses are round limbed, and 
look as well satisfied as their owners. A restless 
man always has a thin horse. He does not give 
the creature time to eat, wears out on him so- 
many whip lashes, and keeps jerking perpetually 
at the reins. Boston horses are, for the most 
part, fat, feel their oats, and know that the eyes 
of the world are upon them. You see, we think 
it no dishonor to a minister to admire good 
horses, provided he does not trade too often, and 
impose a case of glanders and bots on his unso- 
phisticated neighbor. We think that, as a 
minister is set up for an example to his flock, he 
ought to have the best horse in the congregation. 



128 Around the Tea-table, 

A minister is no more sacred when riding behind 
a spavined and ringboned nag than when whirl- 
ing along after a horse that can swallow a mile 
in 2.30. 

The anniversary week in Boston closed by a 
display of flowers and fruits in Horticultural 
Hall. It was appropriate that philanthropists 
and Christians, hot from discussions of moral 
and religious topics, should go in and take a bath 
of rose leaves and geraniums. Indeed, I think 
the sweetest anniversary of the week was that of 
these flowers. A large rhododendron presided. 
Azaleas and verbenas took part in the meeting. 
The Chinese honeysuckle and clematis joined in 
the doxology. A magnolia pronounced the bene- 
diction. And we went home praying for the 
time when the lily of the valley shall be planted 
in every heart, and the desert shall blossom as 
the rose. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
JONAH VERSUS THE WHALE. 

Unbelievers have often told us that the story 
of the prophet swallowed by a great fish was an 
absurdity. They say that, so long in the stomach 
of the monster, the minister would have been 
digested. We have no difficulty in this matter. 
Jonah was a most unwilling guest of the whale. 
He wanted to get out. However much he may 
have liked fish, he did not w^ant it three times 
a day and all the time. So he kept up a fidget, 
and a struggle, and a turning over, and he gave 
the whale no time to assimilate him. The man 
knew that if he was ever to get out he must be 
in perpetual motion. We know men that are so 
lethargic they would have given the matter up, 
and lain down so quietly that in a few hours 
they would have gone into flukes and fish bones, 
blow-holes and blubber. 

Now we see men all around us who have been 
swallowed by monstrous misfortunes. Some of 
them sit down on a piece of whalebone and give 
up. They say: '^No use! I w^ill never get back 
my money, or restore my good name, or recover 
my health. ' ' They float out to sea and are never 
again heard of. Others, the moment they go 
down the throat of some great trouble, begin 
immediately to plan for egress. They make rapid 
estimate of the length of the vertebrate, and 
come to the conclusion how far they are in. 
They dig up enough spermaceti out of the dark- 
ness to make a light, and keep turning this way 
and that, till the first you know they are out. 
Determination to get w^ell has much to do with 

129 



130 Around the Tea-table. 

recovered invalidism. Firm will to defeat bank- 
ruptcy decides financial deliverance. Never sur- 
render to misfortune or discouragement. You 
can, if you are spry enough, make it as uncom- 
fortable for the whale as the whale can make it 
uncomfortable for you. There will be some place 
where you can brace your foot against his ribs, 
and some long upper tooth around which you may 
take hold, and he will be as glad to get rid of 
you for tenant as you are to get rid of him for 
landlord. There is a way, if you are determined 
to find it. All our sympathies are with the 
plaintiff in the suit of Jonah versus Leviathan, 



CHAPTER XXV. 
SOMETHING UNDER THE SOFA, 

Not more than twenty-five miles from New 
York city, and not more than two years ago, there 
stood a church in which occurred a novelty. We 
promised not to tell ; but as we omit all names, 
we think ourselves warranted in writing the 
sketch. The sacred edifice had stood more than 
a hundred years, until the doors were rickety, 
and often stood open during the secular week. 
The window glass in many places had been broken 
out. The shingles were oft' and the snow drifted 
in, and the congregation during a shower fre- 
quently sat under the droppings of the sanctuary. 
All of which would have been a matter for sym- 
pathy, had it not been for the fact that the people 
of the neighborhood were nearly all w^ealthy, and 
lived in large and comfortable farm houses, mak- 
ing the appearance of their church a fit subject 
for satire. 

The pulpit w^as giving way with the general 
wreck, was unpainted, and the upholstery on 
book-board and sofa seemed calling out w^ith 
Jew's voice, '^ Any old clo'? Any old clo'?'^ One 
Sabbath, the minister felt some uneasiness under 
the sofa while the congregation were singing, and 
could not imagine the cause; but found out the 
next day that a maternal cat had made her nest 
there with her group of ofi'spring, who had 
entered upon mortal life amid these honorable 
surroundings. 

Highly-favored kittens ! If they do not turn 
out well, it will not be the fault of their mother, 
who took them so early under good influences. 

X31 



132 Around the Tea-table. 

In the temple of old the swallow found a nest 
for herself where she might lay her young; but 
this is the first time we ever knew of the con- 
ference of such honors on the Felis domestica. 
It could not have been anything mercenary that 
took the old cat into the pulpit, for ^*poor as a 
church mouse" has become proverbial. Nothing 
but lofty aspirations could have taken her there, 
and a desire that her young should have ad- 
vantages of high birth. If in the '^Historical 
Society'^ there are mumm_ied cats two thousand 
years old, much more will post-mortem honors be 
due this ecclesiastical Pussy. 

We see many churches in city as well as town 
that need rehabilitation and reconstruction. Peo- 
ple of a neighborhood have no right to live in 
houses better constructed than their church. 
Better touch up the fresco, and put on a new roof, 
and tear out the old pews which ignore the shape 
of a man's back, and supersede the smoky lamps 
by clarified kerosene or cheap gas brackets. 
Lower you high pulpit that your preacher may 
come down from the Mont Blanc of his isolation 
and solitariness into the same climate of sympathy 
with his audience. Tear away the old sofa, 
ragged and spring-broken, on which the pastors 
of forty years have been obliged to sit, and see 
whether there are any cats in your antediluvian 
pulpit. 

Would it not be well for us all to look under 
our church sofas and see if there be anything 
lurking there that we do not suspect? A cat, in 
all languages, has been the symbol of deceit and 
spitefulness, and she is more fit for an ash barrel 
than a pulpit. Since we heard that story of feline 
nativity, w^henever we see a minister of religion, 
on some question of Christian reform, skulking 
behind a barrier, and crawling away into some 
half-and-half position on the subject of tern- 



Sotnetlmig Under the Sofa, 133 

perance or oppression, and daring not to speak 
out, instead of making his pulpit a height from 
which to hurl the truth against the enemies of 
God, turning it into a cowardly hiding place, we 
say, '^Another cat in the pulpit." 

Whenever we see a professed minister of religion 
lacking in frankness of soul, deceitful in his 
friendship, shaking hands heartily when ^ou 
meet him, but in private taking every possible 
opportunity of giving you a long, deep scratch, 
or in public newspapers giving you a sly dig with 
the claw of his pen, we say: '' Another cat in the 
pulpit!" 

Once a year let all our churches be cleaned with 
soap, and sand, and mop, and scrubbing brush, 
and the sexton not forget to give one turn of his 
broom under the pastor's chair. Would that 
with one bold and emphatic ^'scat!" we could 
drive the last specimen of deceitfulness and 
skulking from the American pulpit ! 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
THE WAY TO KEEP FEESH. 

How to get out of the old rut without twisting 
off the wheel, or snapping the shafts, or break- 
ing the horse^s leg, is a question not more appro- 
priate to every teamster than to every Christian 
worker. Having once got out of the old rut, the 
next thing is to keep out. There is nothing more 
killing than ecclesiastical humdrum. Some per- 
sons do not like the Episcopal Church because 
they have the same prayers every Sabbath, but 
have we not for the last ten years been hearing 
the same prayers over and over again, the pro- 
duct of a self-manufactured liturgy that has not 
the thousandth part of the excellency of those 
petitions that we hear in the Episcopal 
Church? 

In many of our churches sinners hear the same 
exhortations that they have been hearing for the 
last fifteen years, so that the impenitent man 
knows, the moment the exhorter clears his throat, 
just what is going to be said; and the hearer 
himself is able to recite the exhortation as we 
teach our children the multiplication table for- 
ward or backward. We could not understand the 
doleful strain of a certain brother ^s prayer till we 
found out that he composed it on a fast day dur- 
ing the yellow fever in 1821, and has been using 
it ever since. 

There are laymen who do not like to hear a 
sermon preached the second time who yet give 
their pastors the same prayer every week at the 
devotional meeting — that is, fifty-two times the 
year, with occasional slices of it between meals. 

1.^4 



The Way to Keep Fresh, 135 

If they made any spiritual advancement, they 
would have new wants to express and new 
thanksgivings to offer. But they have been for 
a decade of years stuck fast in the mud, and they 
splash the same thing on you every week. We 
need a universal church cleaning by which 
all canting and humdrum shall be scrubbed 
out 

If we would keep fresh, let us make occasional 
excursions into other circles than our own. 
Artists generally go w^ith artists, farmers with 
farmers, mechanics with mechanics, clergymen 
with clergymen, Christian workers with Christian 
workers. But there is nothing that sooner freshens 
one up than to get in a new group, mingling with 
people whose thought and work run in different 
channels. For a change put the minister on the 
hay rack and the farmer in the clergyman's 
study. 

Let us read books not in our own line. After a 
man has been delving in nothing but theological 
works for three months, a few pages in the Patent- 
office Report will do him more good than Doctor 
Dick on ' ^ The Perseverance of the Saints. ' ' Better 
than this, as a diversion, is it to have some de- 
partment of natural history or art to which you 
may turn, a case of shells or birds, or a season 
ticket to some picture gallery. If you do noth- 
ing but play on one string of the bass viol, you 
will wear it out and get no healthy tune. Better 
take the bow and sweep it clear across in one 
grand swirl, bringing all four strings and all eight 
stops into requisition. 

Let us go much into the presence of the natural 
world if we can get at it. Especially if we live 
in great thoroughfares let us make occasional 
flight to the woods and the mountains. Even the 
trees in town seem artificial. They dare not speak 
where there are so many to listen, and the hya- 



136 Around the Tea-table, 

cinth and geranium in flower pots in the window 
seem to know they are on exhibition. If we 
would once in a while romp the fields, we would 
not have so many last year's rose leaves in our 
sermons, but those just plucked, dewy and redo- 
lent. 

We cannot see the natural world through the 
books or the eyes of others. All this talk about 
^ ^babbling brooks" is a stereotyped humbug. 
Brooks never * 'babble." To babble is to be 
unintelligent and imperfect of tongue. But when 
the brooks speak, they utter lessons of beauty 
that the dullest ear can understand. We have 
wandered from the Androscoggin in Maine to the 
Tombigbee in Alabama, and we never found a 
brook, that * ' babbled. ' ' The people babble who 
talk about them, not knowing what a brook is. 
We have heard about the nightingale and the 
morning lark till we tire of them. Catch for 
your next prayer meeting talk a chewink or a 
Drown thresher. It is high time that we hoist 
our church windows, especially those over the 
pulpit, and let in some fresh air from the fields 
and mountains. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
CHRISTMAS BELLS. 

The sexton often goes into the tower on a satf 
errand. He gives a strong pull at the rope, and^ 
forth from the tower goes a dismal sound that- 
makes the heart sink. But he can now go up the- 
old stairs with a lithe step and pull quick and 
sharp, waking up all the echoes of cavern and 
hill with Christmas bells. The days of joy have- 
come, days of reunion, days of congratulation. 
** Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy 
that shall be to alf people. ' ^ 

First, let the bells ring at the birth of Jesus '■ 
Mary watching, the camels moaning, the shep- 
herds rousing up, the angels hovering, all Beth-^ 
lehem stirring. What a night! Out of its black 
wing is plucked the pen from which to write the 
brightest songs of earth and the richest doxologies 
of heaven. Let camel or ox stabled that night 
in Bethlehem, after the burden-bearing of the 
day, stand and look at Him who is to carry the 
burdens of the world. Put back the straw and 
hear the first cry of Him who is come to assuage 
the lamentation of all ages. 

Christmas bells ring out the peace of nations !' 
We want on our standards less of the lion andi 
eagle and more of the dove. Let all the cannon 
be dismounted, and the war horses change their 
gorgeous caparisons for plough harness. Let us 
have fewer bullets and more bread. Life is too 
precious to dash it out against the brick case- 
ments. The first Peace Society was born in the 
clouds, and its resolution was passed unanimously 

137 



138 Around the Tea-table, 

by angelic voices, ''Peace on earth, good- will to 
men. ' ' 

Christmas bells ring in family reunions ! The 
rail trains crowded with children coming home. 
The poultry, fed as never since they were born, 
stand wondering at the farmer's generosity. The 
markets are full of massacred barnyards. The 
great table will be spread and crowded with two, 
or three, or four generations. Plant the fork 
astride the breast bone, and with skillful twitch, 
that we could never learn, give to all the hungry 
lookers-on a specimen of holiday anatomy. Mary 
is disposed to soar, give her the wing. The boy 
is fond of music, give him the drum stick. The 
minister is dining with you, give him the par- 
»son's nose. May the joy reach from grandfather, 
who is so dreadful old he can hardly find the 
way to his plate, down to the baby in the high 
'<chair with one smart pull of the table cloth up- 
setting the gravy into the cranberry. Send from 
j^our table a liberal portion to the table of the 
pwr, some of the white meat as well as the dark, 
ifiot confining your generosity to gizzards and 
tscraps. Do not, as in some families, keep a plate 
and chair for those who are dead and gone. 
Your holiday feast would be but poor fare for 
them ; they are at a better banquet in the skies. 

Let the whole land be full of chime and carol. 
Ijet bells, silver and brazen, take their sweetest 
voice, and all the towers of Christendom rain 
loansic. 

We wish all our friends a merry Christmas. 
Let them hang up their stockings; and if Santa 
Claus has any room for us in his sleigh, we will 
get in and ride down their chimney, upsetting all 
©ver the hearth a thousand good wishes. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
POOR PEEACHING. 

There never was a time when in all denomi- 
nations of Christians there was so much attractive 
sermonizing as to-day. Princeton, and Middle- 
town, and Eochester, and New Brunswick, are 
sending into the ministry a large number of 
sharp, earnest, consecrated men. Stupidity, after 
being regularly ordained, is found to be no more 
acceptable to the people than before, and the 
title of Doctorate cannot any longer be substituted 
for brains. Perhaps, however, there may get to 
be a surfeit of fine discourses. Indeed, we have 
so many appliances for making bright and incisive 
preachers that we do not know but that after a 
while, when we want a sleepy discourse as an 
anodyne, we shall have to go to the ends of the 
earth to find one; and dull sermons may be at 
a premium, congregations of limited means not 
being able to afi'ord them at all ; and so we shall 
have to fall back on chloral or morphine. 

Are we not, therefore, doing a humanitarian 
work when we give to congregations some rules 
by which, if they want it, they may always have 
poor preaching? 

First. Keep your minister poor. There is 
nothing more ruinous than to pay a pastor too 
much salary. Let every board of trustees look 
over their books and see if they have erred in 
this direction ; and if so, let them cut down the 
minister's wages. There are churches which pay 
their pastors eight hundred dollars per annum. 
What these good men do with so much money we 
cannot imagine. Our ministers must be taken 

139 



140 Around the Tea-table. 

in. If by occasional fasting for a day our Puritan 
fathers in New England became so good, what 
might we not expect of our ministers if we kept 
them in perpetual fast? No doubt their spiritual 
capacity would enlarge in proportion to their 
shrinkage at the waistcoat. The average salary 
of ministers in the United States is about six 
hundred dollars. Perhaps by some spiritual pile- 
driver we might send it down to live hundred 
dollars; and then the millennium, for the lion 
by that time would be so hungry he would let 
the lamb lie down inside of him. We would 
suggest a very economical plan : give your spiritual 
adviser a smaller income, and make it up by a 
donation visit. When everything else fails to 
keep him properly humble, that succeeds. We 
speak from experience. Fourteen years ago we 
had one, and it has been a means of grace to us 
ever since. 

Secondly. For securing poor preaching, wait on 
your pastor with frequent committees. Let three 
men some morning tie their horses at the 
dominie's gate, and go in and tell him how to 
preach, and pray, and visit. Tell him all the 
disagreeable things said about him for six 
months, and what a great man his predecessor 
was, how much plainer his wife dressed, and 
how much better his children behaved. Pastoral 
committees are not like the small-pox — you can 
have them more than once; they are more like 
the mumps, which you may have first on one 
side and then on the other. If, after a man has 
had the advantage of being manipulated by three 
church committees, he has any pride or spirit 
left, better give him up as incorrigible. 

Thirdly. To secure poor preaching, keep the 
minister on the trot. Scold him when he comes 
to see you because he did not come before, and 
tell him how often you were visited by the 



Poor Preaching . 141 

former pastor. Oh, that blessed predecessor! 
Strange they did not hold on to the angel when 
they had him. Keep your minister going. Ex- 
pect him to respond to every whistle. Have him 
iit all the tea parties and 'Hhe raisings." Stand 
him in the draught of the door at the funeral — a 
frequent way of declaring a pulpit vacant. Keep 
him busy all the week in out-door miscellaneous 
work ; and if at the end of that time he cannot 
preach a weak discourse, send for us, and we will 
show him how to do it. Of course there are 
exceptions to all rules ; but if the plan of treat- 
ment we have proposed be carried out, we do not 
see that any church in city or country need long 
be in want of poor preaching. 



CHAPTER XXIX, 
SHELVES A MAN'S INDEX. 

In Chelsea, a suburb of London, and on a nar- 
row street, with not even a house in front, but, 
instead thereof, a long range of brick wall, is the 
house of Thomas Carlyle. You go through a nar- 
row hall and turn to the left, nnd are in the 
literary workshop where some of the strongest 
thunderbolts of the world have been forged. The 
two front windows have on them scant curtains 
of reddish calico, hung at the top of the lower 
sash, so as not to keep the sun from looking 
down, but to hinder the street from looking in. 

The room has a lounge covered with the same 
material, and of construction such as you would 
find in the plainest house among the mountains. 
It looks as if it had been made by an author not 
accustomed to saw or hammer, and in the inter- 
stices of mental work. On the wall are a few 
wood-cuts in plain frames or pinned against the 
wall ; also a photograph of Mr. Carlyle taken one 
day, as his family told us, when he had a violent 
toothache and could attend to nothing else. It 
is his favorite picture, though it gives him a face 
more than ordinarily severe and troubled. 

In long shelves, unpainted and unsheltered by 
glass or door, is the library of the world-renowned 
thinker. The books are worn, as though he had 
bought them to read. Many of them are un- 
common books, the titles of which we never saw 
before. American literature is almost ignored, 
while Germany monopolizes many of the spaces. 
We noticed the absence of theological works, save 
those of Thomas Chalmers, whose name and 

142 



Shelves a Man'' s Index, 143 

genius lie well-nigh worshiped. The carpets are 
old and worn and faded — not because he cannot 
afford better, Ijut because he would have his 
home a perpetual protest against the world's 
sham. It is a place not calculated to give inspi- 
ration to a writer. No easy chairs, no soft divans, 
no wealth of upholstery, but simply a place to 
work and stay. Never having heard a word 
about it, it was nevertheless just such a place as 
we expected. 

We had there confirmed our former theory of a 
man's study as only a part of himself, or a piece 
of tight-fitting clothing. It is the shell of the 
tortoise, just made to fit the tortoise's back. 
Thomas Carlyle could have no other kind of a 
workshop. What would he do with a damask- 
covered table, or a gilded inkstand, or an uphol- 
stered window? Starting with the idea that the 
intellect is all and the body naught but an ad- 
junct or appendage, he will show that the former 
can live and thrive without any approval of the 
latter. He will give the intiellect all costly 
stimulus, and send the body supperless to bed, 
Thomas Carlyle taken as a premise, this shabby 
room is the inevitable conclusion. Behold the 
principle. 

We have a poetic friend. The backs of his 
books are scrolled and transfigured. A vase of 
japonicas, even in mid-winter, adorns his writing 
desk. The hot- house is as important to him as 
the air. There are soft engravings on the wall. 
This study-chair was made out of the twisted 
roots of a banyan. A dog, sleek-skinned, lies on 
the mat, and gets up as you come in. There 
stand in vermilion all the poets from Homer to 
Tennyson. Here and there are chamois heads 
and pressed seaweed. He writes on gilt-edged 
paper with a gold pen and handle twisted with 
a serpent. His inkstand is a mystery of beauty 



144 Around tJie Tea-table, 

•which unskilled hands dare not touch, lest the 
ink spring at him from some of the open mouths, 
or sprinkle on him from the bronze wings, or 
with some unexpected squirt dash into his eyes 
the blackness of darkness. 

We have a very precise friend. Everything is 
in severe order. Finding his door-knob in the 
dark, you could reason out the position of stove, 
and chair, and table; and placing an arrow at 
the back of the book on one end of the shelf, it 
would fly to the other end, equally grazing all 
the bindings. It is ten years since John Milton, 
or Robert Southey, or Sir William Hamilton have 
been out of their places, and that was when an 
ignoramus broke into the study. The volumes of 
the encyclopedias never change places. Manu- 
scripts unblotted, and free from interlineation, 
and labeled. The spittoon knows its place in the 
corner, as if treated by tobacco chewers with oft 
indignity. You could go into that study with 
your eyes shut, turn around, and without feeling 
for the chair throw yourself back with perfect 
confidence that the furniture would catch you. 
No better does a hat fit his head, or shoe his foot, 
or the glove his hand, than the study fits his 
whole nature. 

We have a facetious friend. You pick off the 
corner of his writing table "Noctes Ambrosianae" 
or the London ^ 'Punch." His chair is wide, so 
that he can easily roll off on the floor when he 
wants a good time at laughing. His inkstand is 
a monkey, with the variations. His study-cap 
would upset a judge^s risibilities. Scrap books 
with droll caricatures and facetiae. An odd stove, 
exciting your wonder as to where the coal is put 
in or the poker thrust for a shaking. All the 
works of Douglass Jerrold, and Sydney Smith, 
and Sterne, the scalawag ecclesiastic. India-rub- 
ber faces capable of being squashed into anything. 



Shelves a Man^s Index, 145 

Puzzles that you cannot untangle. The four 
walls covered with cuts and engravings sheared 
from weekly pictorials and recklessly taken from 
parlor table books. Prints that put men and 
women into hopeless satire. 

We have a friend of many peculiarities. Enter- 
ing his house, you find nothing in the place 
where you expected it. ^'Don Quixote, '^ with 
all its windmills mixed up with ^'Dr. Dick on 
the Sacraments, ' 'Mark Twain's ' ' Jumping Frog, ' ' 
and * ' Charnock on the Attributes. ' ' Passing across 
the room, you stumble against the manuscript of 
his last lecture, or put your foot in a piece of 
pie that has fallen off the end of the writing 
table. You mistake his essay on the ^'Coperni- 
€an System" for blotting paper. Many of his 
books are bereft of the binding ; and in attempt- 
ing to replace the covers, Hudibras gets the cover 
w^hich belongs to ''Barnes on the Acts of the 
Apostles. ' ' An earthquake in the room would be 
more apt to improve than to unsettle. There are 
marks where the inkstand became unstable and 
made a handwriting on the wall that even Daniel 
could not have interpreted. If, some fatal day, 
the wife or housekeeper come in, while the occu- 
pant is absent, to ''clear up," a damage is done 
that requires weeks to repair. For many days 
the question is, "Where is my pen? Who has 
the concordance? What on earth has become of 
the dictionary? Where is the paper cutter?" 
Work is impeded, patience lost, engagements are 
broken, because it was not understood that the 
study is a part of the student's life, and that 
you might as well try to change the knuckles to 
the inside of the hand, or to set the eyes in the 
miiddle of the forehead, as to make the man of 
whom we speak keep his pen on the rack, or his 
books off the floor, or the blotting paper straight 
in the portfolio. 



146 Around the Tea-table. 

The study is a part of the mental development. 
Don't blame a man for the style of his literary 
apartments any more than you would for the 
color of his hair or the shape of his nose. If 
Hobbes carries his study with him, and his pen 
and his inkstand in the top of his cane, so let 
him carry them. If Lamartinecan best compose 
while walking his park, paper and pencil in 
hand, so let him. ramble. If Robert Hall thinks 
easiest when lying fiat on his back, let him be 
prostrate. If Lamasius writes best surrounded 
by children, let loose on him the whole nursery. 
Don't criticise Charles Dickens because he threw 
all his study windows wide open and the shades 
up. It may fade the carpet, but it will pour sun- 
shine into the hearts of a million readers. If 
Thomas Carlyle chose to call around an ink- 
spattered table Goethe, and Schiller, and Jean Paul 
Frederick Richter, and dissect the shams of the 
world with a plain goose-quill, so be it. The 
horns of an ox's head are not more certainly a 
part of the ox than Thomas Carlyle 's study and 
all its appointments are a part of Thomas Carlyle. 

The gazelle will have soft fur, and the lion a 
shaggy hide, and the sanctum isanctorum is the 
student's cuticle. 






CHAPTER XXX. 
BEHAVIOR AT CHURCH. 

Around the door of country meeting-houses it 
has always been the custom for the people to 
gather before and after church for social inter- 
course and the shaking of hands. Perhaps because 
^^e, ourselves, were born in the country and had 
never got over it, the custom pleases us. In the 
cities we arrive the last moment before service 
and go away the first moment after. We act as 
though the church were a rail-car, into w hich W'e 
go wdien the time for starting arrives, and we 
get out again as soon as the depot of the Doxology 
is reached. We protest against this business way 
of doing things. Shake hands w-hen the benedic- 
tion is pronounced with those w^ho sat before and 
those w^ho sat behind you. Meet the people in 
the aisle, and give them Christian salutation. 
Postponement of the dining hour for fifteen 
minutes wall damage neither you nor the dinner. 
That is the moment to say a comforting word to 
the man or w^oman in trouble. The sermon was 
preached to the people in general ; it is your place 
to apply it to the individual heart. 

The church aisle may be made the road to 
heaven. Many a man who w^as unaffected by 
what the minister said has been captured for God 
by the Christian w^ord of an unpretending lay- 
man on the way out. 

You may call it personal magnetism, or natural 
cordiality, but there are some Christians who 
have such an ardent way of shaking hands after 
meeting that it amounts to a benediction. Such 

147 



148 Arou7id the Tea-table. 

greeting is not made with the left hand. The 
left hand is good for a great many tilings, for 
instance to hold a fork or twist a curl, but it 
was never made to shake hands with, unless you 
have lost the use of the right. Nor is it done 
hy the tips of the fingers laid loosely in the palm 
of another. Nor is it done with a glove on. 
Gloves are good to keep out the cold and make 
one look well, but have them so they can easily 
be removed, as they should be, for they are non- 
conductors of Christian magnetism. Make bare 
the hand. Place it in the palm of your friend. 
Clench the fingers across the back part of the 
hand you grip. Then let all the animation of 
your heart rush to the shoulder, and from there 
to the elbow, and then through the fore arm and 
through the wrist, till your friend gets the whole 
charge of gospel electricity. 

In Paul's time he told the Christians to greet 
each other with a holy kiss. We are glad the 
custom has been dropped, for there are many 
.good people who would not want to kiss us, as 
w^e would not want to kiss them. Very attractive 
persons would find the supply greater than the 
demand. But let as have a substitute suited to 
our age and land. Let it be good, hearty, en- 
thusiastic, Christian hand-shaking. 

Governor Wiseman, our grave friend at tea, 
broke in upon us at this moment and said : I am 
not fond of indiscriminate hand-shaking, andso 
^m not especially troubled by the lack of cordiality 
on the part of church-goers. But I am sometimes 
very much annoyed on Sabbaths with the habit 
of some good people in church. It may be foolish 
in me ; but when the wind blows from the east, 
it takes but little to disturb me. 

There are some of the best Christian people 
who do not know how to carry themselves in 
religious assemblage. They never laugh. They 



Behavior at Church . 149 

never applaud. They never hiss. Yet, notwith- 
standing, are disturbers of public worship. 

There is, for instance, the coughing brigade. 
If any individual right ought to be maintained 
at all hazards, it is the right of coughing. There 
are times when you nmst cough. There is an 
irresistible tickling in the throat which demands 
audible demonstration. It is moved, seconded 
and unanimously carried that those w^ho have 
irritated w^indpipes be heard. But there are w^ays 
with hand or handkerchief of breaking the 
repercussion. A smothered cough is dignified 
and acceptable if you have nothing better to offer. 
But how many audiences have had their peace 
sacrificed by unrestrained expulsion of air through 
the glottis! After a sudden change in the 
weather, there is a fearful charge made by the 
coughing brigade. They open their mouths w^ide, 
and make the arches ringw'ith the racket. They 
begin with a faint *^Ahem!" and gradually rise 
and fall through all the scale of dissonance, as 
much as to say: *'Hear, all ye good people! I 
have a cold ! I have a bad cold ! I have an awful 
bad cold! Hear how it racks me, tears me, 
torments me. It seems as if my diaphragm must 
be split. I took this awful bad cold the other 
night. I added to it last Sunday. Hear how it 
goes ofi"! There it is again. Oh dear me! If 
I only had ^Brown's troches,' or the syrup of 
squills, or a mustard plaster, or a woolen stocking 
turned ^Tong side out around my neck ! ' ' Brethren 
and sisters who took cold by sitting in the same 
draught join the clamor, *^and it is glottis to 
glottis, and laryngitis to laryngitis, and a chorus 
of scrapings and explosions which make the 
service hideous for a preacher of sensitive 
nerves. 

We have seen people under the pulpit coughing 
with their mouth so far open we have been 



1 50 Arou7id the Tea-table, 

tempted to jump into it. There are some per- 
sons who have a convenient ecclesiastical cough. 
It does not trouble them ordinarily ; but when in 
church you get them thoroughly cornered with 
some practical truth, they smother the end of the 
sentences with a favorite paroxysm. There is 
a man in our church who is apt to be taken with 
one of these fits just as the contribution box 
€omes to him, and cannot seem to get his breath 
again till he hears the pennies rattling in the 
box behind him. Cough by all means, but put 
on the brakes when you come to the down grade, 
or send the racket through at least one fold of 
your pocket-handkerchief. 

Governor Wiseman went on further to say that 
the habits of the pulpit sometimes annoyed him 
as much as the habits of the pew. The Governor 
said: I cannot bear the preliminaries'' of 
religious service. 

By common consent the exercises in the 
churches going before the sermon are called 
^'preliminaries." The dictionary says that a 
'''preliminary" is that which precedes the main 
business. We do not think the sermon ought to 
be considered the main business. When a pastor 
sX the beginning of the first prayer says ^'O 
God!" he has entered upon the most important 
duty of the service. We would not depreciate 
the sermon, but we plead for more attention to 
the * ' preliminaries. " If a minister cannot get 
the attention of the people for prayer or Bible 
reading, it is his own fault. Much of the in- 
terest of a service depends upon how it is 
launched. 

The ''preliminaries" are, for the most part, 
the time in which people in church examine 
their neighbors' clothes. Milliners and tailors 
get the advantage of the first three-quarters of 
an hour. The "preliminaries" are the time to 



Behavior at ChiiJxh. 151 

scrutinize the fresco, and look round to see who 
is there, and get yourself generally fixed. 

This idea is fostered by home elocutionary 
professors who would have the minister take the 
earlier exercises of the occasion to get his voice 
in tune. You must not speak out at first. It is 
to be a private interview between you and 
heaven. The people will listen to the low "grumble, 
and think it must be very good if they could 
only hear it. As for ourselves, we refuse to put 
down our bead in public prayer until we find out 
wdiether or not we are going to be able to hear. 
Though you preach like an angel, you will not 
say anything more important than that letter of 
St. Paul to the Corinthians, or that Psalm of 
David which you have just now read to the 
backs of the heads of the congregation. Laymen 
.and ministers, speak out ! The opening exercises 
were not instituted to clear your voice, but to save 
souls. If need be, squeeze a lemon and eat 
^'Brown's troches" for the sake of your voice 
before you go to church ; but once there, make 
jour first sentence resonant and mighty for God. 
An hour and a half is short time anyhow to get 
:five hundred or five thousand people ready for 
heaven. It is thought classic and elegant to have 
a delicate utterance, and that loud tones are vul- 
gar. But we never heard of people being con- 
verted by anything they could not hear. It is 
-said that on the Mount of Olives Christ opened His 
mouth and taught them, by which we conclude 
He spake out distinctly. God has given most 
Ghristians plenty of lungs, but they are too lazy 
to use them. There are in the churches old peo- 
ple hard of hearing who, if the exercises be 
not clear and emphatic, get no advantage save 
that of looking at the blessed minister. 

People say in apology for their inaudible tones : 
'''It is not the thunder that kills, but the light- 



152 Around the Tea-table, 

ning. ' ' True enough ; but I think that God 
thinks well of the thunder or He would not use 
so much of it. First of all, make the people hear 
the prayer and the chapter. If you want to hold 
up at all, let it be on the sermon and the notices. 
Let the pulpit and all the pews feel that there 
are no * ' preliminaries. ' ' 



CHAPTER XXXI. 
MASCULINE AND FEMININE. 

There are men who suppose they have all the 
annoyances. They say it is the store that ruffles 
the disposition; but if they could only stay at 
home as do their wives, and sisters, and daughters, 
they w^ould be, all the time, sweet and fair as a 
white pond lily. Let some of the masculine 
lecturers on placidity of temper try for one week 
the cares of the household and the family. Let 
the man sleep with a baby on one arm all night, 
and one ear open to the children with the wdioop- 
ing-cough in the adjoining apartment. Let him 
see the tray of crockery and the cook fall down 
stairs, and nothing saved but the pieces. Let 
the pump give out on a wash-day, and the stove 
pipe, when too hot for handling, get dislocated. 
Let the pudding come out of the stove stiff as a 
poker. Let the gossiping gabbler of next door 
come in and tell all the disagreeable things that 
neighbors have been saying. Let the lungs be 
worn out by staying indoors without fresh air, 
and the needle be threaded with nerves exhausted. 
After one week's household annoyances, he 
would conclude that Wall street is heaven and 
the clatter of the Stock Exchange rich as Bee- 
thoven's symphony. 

We think Mary of Bethany a little to blame for 
not helping Martha get the dinner. If women 
sympathize with men in the troubles of store 
and field, let the men also sympathize with the 
women in the troubles of housekeeping. Many 
a housewife has died of her annoyances. A bar 
of soap may become a murderous weapon. The 

153 



154 Around the Tea-table, 

poor cooking stove has sometimes been the slow 
fire on which the wife has been roasted. In the 
day when Latimer and Eidley are honored before 
the universe as the martyrs of the fire, we do not 
think the Lord will forget the long line of wives, 
mothers, daughters and sisters who have been the 
martyrs of the kitchen. 

Accompanying masculine criticism of woman's 
temper goes the popular criticism of woman's 
dress. 

A convention has recently been held in Yine- 
iand, attended by the women who are opposed to 
extravagance in dress. They propose, not only 
hy formal resolution, but by personal example, to 
Ceach the world lessons of economy by wearing 
less adornment and dragging fewer yards of silk. 

We wish them all success, although we would 
have more confidence in the movement if so many 
of the delegates had not worn bloomer dress. Moses 
makes war upon that style of apparel in Deuter- 
onomy xxii. 5: ^^The woman shall not wear that 
which pertaineth unto man. ' ' Nevertheless we 
favor every efi'ort to stop the extravagant use of 
dry goods and millinery. 

We have, however, no sympathy with the im- 
plication that women are worse than men in 
this respect. Men wear all they can without 
interfering with their locomotion, but man is 
such an awkward creature he cannot find any 
place on his body to hang a great many ^ fineries. 
He could not get round in Wall street with eight 
or ten flounces, and a big-handled parasol, and a 
mountain of back hair. Men wear less than 
women, not because they are more moral, but 
because they cannot stand it. As it is, many of 
our young men are padded to a superlative degree, 
and have corns and bunions on every separate 
toe from wearing shoes too tight. 

Neither have we any sympathy with the im- 



Masculi7ie and Feminine. 155 

plication that the present is worse than the past 
in matters of dress. Compare the fashion plates 
of the seventeenth century with the fashion 
plates of the nineteenth, and you decide in favor 
of our day. The women of'^Isaiah's time beat 
anything now. Do we have the kangaroo fashion 
Isaiah speaks of — the daughters who walked 
with ^'stretched forth necks?" Talk of hoops! 
Isaiah speaks of women with ^' round tires like 
the moon. ' ' Do we have hot irons for curling 
our hair? Isaiah speaks of ''wimples and crisp- 
ing pins. ' ' Do we sometimes wear glasses astride 
our nose, not because we are near-sighted, but 
f or beautification? Isaiah speaks of the ''glasses, 
and the earrings, and the nose jewels. ' ' The 
dress of to-day is far more sensible than that 
of a hundred or a thousand years ago. 

But the largest room in the world is room for 
improvement, and we would cheer on those who 
would attempt reformation either in male or 
female attire. Meanwhile, we rejoice that so 
many of the pearls, and emeralds, and amethysts, 
and diamonds of the world are coming in the 
possession of Christian women. Who knows but 
that the spirit of ancient consecration may some 
day come upon them, and it shall again be as it 
was in the time of Moses, that for the prosperity 
of the house of the Lord the w^omen may bring 
their bracelets, and earrings, and tablets and 
jewels? The precious stones of earth will never 
have their proper place till they are set around 
the Pearl of Great Price. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 
LITEEAKY FELONY. 

We have recently seen many elaborate discus- 
sions as to whether plagiarism is virtuous or 
criminal — in other words, whether writers may 
steal. If a minister can find a sermon better 
than any one he can make, why not preach it? 
If an author can find a paragraph for his book 
better than any he can himself manufacture, why 
not appropriate it? 

That sounds well. But why not go further 
and ask, if a woman find a set of furs better than 
she has in her wardrobe, why not take them? If 
a man find that his neighbor has a cow full 
Alderney, while he has in his own yard only a 
scrawny runt, why not drive home the Alderney? 
Theft is taking anything that does not belong to 
you, whether it be sheep, oxen, hats, coats or 
literary material. 

Without attempting to point out the line that 
divides the lawful appropriation of another's 
ideas from the appropriation of another's phras- 
eology, we have only to say that a literary man 
always knows when he is stealing. Whether 
found out or not, the process is belittling, and 
a man is through it blasted for this world and 
damaged for the next one. The ass in the fable 
wanted to die because he was beaten so much, 
but after death they changed his hide into a 
drum-head, and thus he was beaten more than 
ever. So the plagiarist is so vile a cheat that 
there is not much chance for him, living or 
dead. A minister who hopes to do good with 
such burglary will no more be a successful am- 

156 



Literary Felony. 157 

bassador to men than a foreign minister de- 
spatched by our government to-day would succeed 
if he presented himself at the court of St. James 
with the credentials that he stole from the 
archives of those illustrious ex-ministers, James 
Buchanan or Benjamin Franklin. 

What every minister needs is a fresh message 
that day from the Lord. We would sell cheap all 
our parchments of licensure to preach. God 
gives his ministers a license every Sabbath and a 
new message. He sends none of us out so men- 
tally poor that we have nothing to furnish but a 
cold hash of other people's sermons. Our hay- 
stack is large enough for all the sheep that come 
round it, and there is no need of our taking a 
single forkful from any other barrack. By all 
means use all the books you can get at, but devour 
them, chew them fine and digest them, till they 
become a part of the blood and bone of your own 
nature. There is no harm in delivering an oration 
or sermon belonging to some one ^Ise provided 
you so announce it. Quotation marks are cheap, 
and let us not be afraid to use them. Do you 
know why ''quotation'' marks are made up of 
four commas, two at the head of the paragraph 
adopted and two at the close of it? Those four 
commas mean that you should stop four times 
before you steal anything. 

If there were no question of morals involved, 
plagiarism is nevertheless most perilous. There 
are a great many constables out for the arrest of 
such defrauders. That stolen paragraph that you 
think will never be recognized has been com- 
mitted to memory by that old lady with green 
goggles in the front pew. That very same brill- 
iant passage you have just pronounced was de- 
livered by the clergyman who preached in that 
Eulpit the Sabbath before : two thieves met in one 
en -roost. All we know of Doctor Hay ward of 



158 



Around the Tea-table, 



Queen Elizabeth's time is that he purloined from 
Tacitus. Be dishonest once in this respect, 
and when you do really say something original 
and good the world will cry out, ^'Yes, very 
fine! I always did like Joseph Addison!'^ 

Sermons are successful not according to the 
head involved in them, but according to the 
heart implied, and no one can feel aright while 
preaching a literary dishonesty. Let us be con- 
tent to wear our own coat, though the nap on it 
is not quite as well looking, to ride on our own 
horse, though he do not gallop as gracefully and 
will *^ break up'^ when others are passing. There 
is a work for us all to do, and God gives us just 
the best tools to do it. What folly to be hanker- 
ing after our neighbor's chalk line and gimlet! 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 
LITERARY ABSTINENCE. 

It is as much an art not to read as to read. With 
what pains, and thumps, and whacks at school 
we first learned the way to put words together ! 

We did not mind so much being whipped by 
the schoohnaster for not knowing how to read 
our lesson, but to have to go out ourselves and 
cut the hickory switch with which the chastise- 
ment was to be inflicted seemed to us then, as it 
does now, a great injustice. 

Notwithstanding all our hard work in learning 
to read w^e find it quite as hard now to learn how 
not to read. There are innumerable books and 
newspapers from which one had better abstain. 

There are but very few newspapers which it is 
safe to read all through, though we know of one 
that it is best to peruse from beginning to end, 
but modesty forbids us stating which one that 
is. In this day readers need as never before to 
carry a sieve. 

It requires some heroism to say you have not 
read such and such a book. Your friend gives 
you a stare which implies your literary infer- 
iority. Do not, in order to answer the question 
affirmatively, wade through indiscriminate slush. 

We have to say that three-fourths of the novels 
of the day are a mental depletion to those who 
read them. The man who makes wholesale de- 
nunciation of fiction pitches overboard ''Pil- 
grim's Progress'' and the parables of our Lord. 
But the fact is that some of the publishing houses 
that once were cautious about the moral tone of 
their books have become reckless about every- 

159 



i6o Aivund the Tea-table, 

thing but the number of copies sold. It is all 
the same to them whether the package they send 
out be corn starch, jujube paste or hellebore. 
They wrap up fifty copies and mark them C. 0. D. 
But if the expressman, according to that 
mark, should collect on delivery all the curses 
that shall come on the head of the publishing 
liouse which printed them, he would break down 
Ills wagon and kill his horses with the load. Let 
parents and guardians be especially watchful. 
Have a quarantine at your front door for all 
books and newspapers. Let the health doctor go 
abroad and see whether there is any sickness 
there before you let it come to wharfage. 

Whether young or old, be cautious about what 
you read in the newspapers. You cannot day 
after day go through three columns of murder 
trial without being a worse man than when you 
began. While you are trying to find out whether 
Stokes was lying in wait for Fisk, Satan is lying 
in wait for you. Skip that half page of divorce 
case. Keep out of the mud. The Burdell and 
Sickles cases, through the unclean reading they 
afforded to millions of people long ago, led their 
thousands into abandoned lives and pitched them 
off the edge of a lost eternity. With so much 
healthful literature of all sorts, there is no excuse 
for bringing your minds in contact with evil. If 
there were a famine, there might be some reason 
for eating garbage, but the land is full of bread. 
When we may, with our families, sit around 
the clean warm fire-hearth of Christian knowl- 
edge, why go hunting in the ash barrels for 
cinders? 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 
SHORT OR LONG PASTORATES. 

The question is being discussed in many jonr- 
nals, ''How long ought a minister to stay in one 
place?" Clergymen and laymen and editors are 
wagging tongue and pen on the subject — a most 
practical question and easy to answer. Let a 
minister stay in a place till he gets done — that is, 
when he has nothing more to say or do. 

Some ministers are such ardent students of the 
Bible and of men, they are after a twenty-five 
years' residence in a parish so full of things that 
ought to be said, that their resignation would be 
a calamity. Others get through in three months 
and ought to go ; but it takes an earthquake to 
get them away. They must be moved on by com- 
mittees, and pelted with resolutions, stuck through 
with the needles of the ladies' sewing society, 
and advised by neighboring ministers, and hauled 
up before presbyteries and consociations ; and 
after they have killed the church and killed 
themselves, the pastoral relation is dissolved. 

We knew of a man who got a unanimous call. 
He wore the finest pair of gaiters that ever went 
into that pulpit ; and when he took up the Psalm 
book to give out the song, it was the perfection 
of gracefulness. His tongue was dipped in 
^'balm of a thousand flowers," and it was like 
the roll of one of Beethoven's symphonies to hear 
him read the hardest Bible names, Jechonias, 
Zerubbabel and Tiglath-pileser. It was worth all 
the salary paid him to see the way he lifted his 
pocket-handkerchief to his eyelids. 

But that brother, without knowing it, got 
through in six weeks. He had sold out his 

i6i 



1 62 Around the Tea-table, 

entire stock of goods, and ought to have shut up 
shop. Congregations enjoy flowers and well- 
folded pocket-handkerchiefs for occasional des- 
serts, but do not like them for a regular meal. 
The most urbane elder was sent to the minister 
to intimate that the Lord was probably calling 
him to some other field, but the elder was baffled 
by the graciousness of his pastor, and unable to 
discharge his mission, and after he had for an 
hour hemmed and hawed, backed out. 

Next, a woman with a very sharp tongue was 
sent to talk to the minister's wife. The war- 
cloud thickened, the pickets were driven in, and 
then a skirmish, and after a while all the batteries 
were opened, and each side said that the other 
side lied, and the minister dropped his pocket- 
handkerchief and showed his claws as long as 
those of Nebuchadnezzar after he had been three 
years eating grass like an ox. We admire long 
pastorates when it is agreeable to both parties, 
but we know ministers who boast they have been 
thirty years in one place, though all the world 
knows they have been there twenty-nine years 
too long. Their congregations are patiently w^ait- 
ing their removal to a higher latitude. Mean- 
while, those churches are like a man with chronic 
rheumatism, very quiet — not because they admire 
rheumatism, but because there is no use kicking 
with a swollen foot, since it would hurt them 
more than the object assaulted. 

If a pastorate can be maintained only through 
conflict or ecclesiastical tyranny, it might better 
be abandoned. There are many ministers wha 
go away from their settlements before they ought, 
but we think there are quite as many who do 
not go soon enough. A husband might just as 
well try to keep his wife by choking her to death 
with a marriage ring as a minister to try to keep 
a church's love by ecclesiastical violence. Study 
the best time to quit. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 
AN EDITOR'S CHIP-BASKET. 

On our way out the newspaper rooms we 
stumbled over the basket in which is deposited 
the literary material we cannot use. The basket 
upset and surprised us with its contents. On 
the top were some things that looked like fifteen 
or twenty poems. People outside have no idea 
of the amount of rhyme that comes to a printings 
office. The fact is that at some period m every 
one's life he writes ''poetry." His existence 
depends upon it. We wrote ten or fifteen verses 
ourselves once. Had we not written them just 
then and there, we might not be here. They 
were in long metre, and "Old Hundred" would 
have fitted them grandly. 

Many people are seized with the poetic spasri^ 
when they are sick, and their lines are apt to 
begin with. 

' ' mortality ! how frail art thou ! ' ' 
Others on Sabbath afternoons write Sabbath- 
school hymns, adding to the batch of infinite 
nonsense that the children are compelled to swal- 
low. For others a beautiful curl is a corkscrew 
pulling out canto after canto. Nine-tenths of the 
rhyme that comes to a printing office cannot be 
used. You hear a rough tear of paper, and you 
look around to see the managing editor adding to 
the responsibilities of his chip-basket. What a 
way that is to treat incipient Tennysons and 
Longf ellows ! 

Next to the poetic effusions tumble out treatises 
on "constitutional law" heavy enough to break 

163 



164 A^'ound the Tea-table, 

the basket. We have noticed that after a man 
has got so dull he can get no one willing to hear 
him he takes to profound exposition. Out from 
the same chip-basket rolls a great pile of announce- 
ments that people want put among the editorials, 
so as to save the expense of the advertising 
column. They tell us the article they wish 
recommended will have a highly benelicial effect 
upon the Church and world. It is a religious 
churn, or a moral horse-rake, or a consecrated fly 
trap. They almost get us crying over their new 
kind of grindstone, and we put the letter down 
on the table while we get out our pocket-hand- 
kerchief, when our assistant takes hold the docu- 
ment and gives it a ruthless rip, and pitches it 
into the chip-basket. 

Next in the pile of torn and upset things is the 
speech of some one on the momentous occasion 
of the presentation of a gold-headed cane, or 
silver pitcher, or brass kettle for making pre- 
serves. It was ''unexpected," a ''surprise" and 
^'undeserved," and would "long be cherished." 
' ' Great applause, and not a dry eye in the house, ' * 
etc., etc. But there is not much room in a paper 
for speeches. In this country everybody speaks. 

An American is in his normal condition when 
he is making a speech. He is born with ' ' fellow- 
citizens" in his mouth, and closes his earthly 
life by saying, "One word more, and I have 
<ione. ' ' Speeches being so common, newspaper 
readers do not want a large supply, and so many 
of these utterances, intended to be immortal, 
drop into oblivion through that inexhaustible 
reservoir, the editorial chip-basket. 

But there is a hovering of pathos over this 
wreck of matter. Some of these wasted things 
were written for bread by intelligent wives with 
drunken husbands trying to support their families 
with the pen. Over that mutilated manuscript 



A?? Editor' s Chip-basket, 165 

some weary man toiled until daybreak. How we 
wish we could have printed what they wrote! 
Alas for thenecessity that disappoints the literary 
struggle of so many women and men, when it is 
ten dollars for that article or children gone sup- 
perless to bed ! 

Let no one enter the field of literature for the- 
purpose of '' making a living" unless as a very 
last resort. There are thousands of persons to- 
day starv'ing to death with a steel pen in their 
hand. The story of Grub street and poets living 
on thin soup is being repeated all over this land, 
although the modern cases are not so conspicuous. 
Poverty is no more agreeable because classical 
and set in hexameters. The hungry author can- 
not breakfast on "odes to summer." On this 
cold day how many of the literati are shivering! 
Martyrs have perished in the fire, but more per- 
sons have perished for lack of fire. Let no editor 
through hypercriticism of contributed articles 
add to this educated suffering. 

What is that we hear in the next room? It is^ 
the roar of a big fire as it consumes unavailable 
literary material — epics, sonnets, homilies, trac- 
tates, compilations, circulars, dissertations. Some 
of them were obscure, and make a great deal of 
smoke. Some of them were merry, and crackle. 
All of them have ended their mission and gone 
down, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE MANHOOD OF SERVICE. 

At the Crawford House, White Mountains, we 
noticed, one summer, unusual intelligence and 
courtesy on the part of those who served the 
tables. We found out that many of them were 
students from the colleges and seminaries—young 
men and women who had taken this mode of 
replenishing their purses and getting the benefit 
of mountain air. We felt like applauding them. 
We have admiration for those who can be inde- 
pendent of the oppressive conventionalities of 
society. May not all of us practically adopt the 
Christian theory that any work is honorable that 
is useful? The slaves of an ignominious pride, 
how many kill themselves earning a living! We 
have tens of thousands of women in our cities, 
sitting in cold rooms, stabbing their life out with 
their needles, coughing their lungs into tubercles 
^and suffering the horrors of the social inquisition, 
for whom there waits plenty of healthy, happy 
homes in the country, if they could only, like 
these sons and daughters of Dartmouth and North- 
ampton, consent to serve. We wish some one 
would explain to us how a sewing machine is 
any more respectable than a churn, or a yard 
stick is better than a pitchfork. We want a new 
Declaration of Independence, signed by all the 
laboring classes. There is plenty of work for all 
kinds of people, if they were not too proud to 
do it. Though the country is covered with peo- 
ple who can find nothing to do, we would be 
willing to open a bureau to-morrow, warranting 
to give to all the unemployed of the land occu- 
pation, if they would only consent to do what 

i66 



The Manhood of Sendee. 167 

might be assigned them. We believe anything is 
more honorable than idleness. 

During very hard times two Italian artists called 
at our country home, asking if we did not want 
some sketching done, and they unrolled some 
elegant pictures, showing their fine capacity. We 
told them we had no desire for sketches, but we 
had a cistern to clean, and would pay them well 
for doing it. Off w^ent their coats, and in a few 
hours the w^ork w^as done and their wages awarded. 
How^ much more honorable for them to do what 
they could get to do rather than to wait for more 
adapted employment ! 

Why did not the girls of Northampton spend 
their summers embroidering slippers or hemming 
handkerchiefs, and thus keep at work unobserved 
and more popular? Because they were not fools. 
They said : "Let us go up and see Mount Adams, 
and the Profile, and Mount Washington. We 
shall have to work only five hours a day, and all 
the time we wall be gathering health and inspir- 
ation. ' ' Young men, those are the girls to seek 
wdien you want a wife, rather than the w^heezing 
victims of ruinous w^ork chosen because it is more 
popular. About the last thing w^e w^ould w^ant to 
marry is a medicine-chest. Why did not the 
students of Dartmouth, during their vacation, 
teach school? First, because teaching is a science, 
and they did not w^ant to do three months of 
damage to the children of the common school. 
Secondly, because they wanted freedom from 
books as man makes them, and opportunity to 
open the ponderous tome of boulder and strata 
as God printed them. Churches and scientific 
institutions, these wdll be the men to call — brawny 
and independent, rather than the bilious, short- 
breathed, nerveless graduates who, too proud to 
take healthful recreation, tumble, at commence- 
ment day, into the lap of society so many Greek 
roots. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 
BALKY PEOPLE. 

Passing along a country road quite recently, we 
found a man, a horse and wagon in trouble. The 
vehicle was slight and the road was good, but the 
horse refused to draw, and his driver was in a 
bad predicament. He had already destroyed his 
whip in applying inducements to progress in 
travel. He had pulled the horse's ears with a 
sharp string. He had backed him into the ditch. 
He had built a fire of straw underneath him, 
the only result a smashed dash-board. The chief 
efi'ect of the violences and cruelties applied was 
to increase the divergency of feeling between the 
brute and his master. We said to the besweated 
and outraged actor in the scene that the best thing 
for him to do was to let his horse stand for a 
while un whipped and uncoaxed, setting some one 
to watch him while he, the driver, went away to 
cool off. We learned that the plan worked ad- 
mirably; that the cold air, and the appetite for 
oats, and the solitude of the road, favorable for 
contemplation, had made the horse move for 
adjournment to some other place and time; and 
when the driver came up, he had but to take up 
the reins, and the beast, erst so obstinate, dashed 
down the road at a perilous speed. 

There is not as much difference between horses 
and men as you might suppose. The road between 
mind and equine instinct is short and soon 
traveled. The horse is sometimes superior to his 
rider. If anything is good and admirable in pro- 
portion as it answers the end of its being, then 
the horse that bends into its traces before a 

i68 



Balky People, 169 

Fourth avenue car is better than its blaspheming- 
driver. He who cannot manage a horse cannot 
manage a man. 

We know of pastors who have balky parish- 
ioners. When any important move is to take 
place, and all the other horses of the team are 
willing to draw, they lay themselves back in the 
harness. 

First the pastor pats the obstreperous elder or 
deacon on the neck and tells him how much he 
thinks of him. This only makes him shake his 
mane and grind his bit. He will die lirst before 
he consents to such a movement. Next, he is 
pulled by the ear, with a good many sharp in- 
sinuations as to his motives for holding back. 
Fires of indignation are built under him for the 
purpose of consuming his balkiness. He is 
whipped with the scourge of public opinion, but 
this only makes him kick fiercely and lie 
harder in the breeching- straps. He is backed 
down into the ditch of scorn and contempt, but 
still is not willing to draw an ounce. O foolish 
minister, trying in that way to manage a balky 
parishioner! Let him alone. Go on and leave 
him there. Pay less attention to the horse that 
balks, and give more oats to those that pull. 
Leave him out in the cold. Some day you will 
come back and find him glad to start. At your 
first advance he will arch his neck, paw his hoof, 
bend into the bit, stifi*en the traces and dash on. 
We have the same prescription for balky horses 
and men : for a little while let them alone. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
ANONYMOUS LETTERS. 

In boyhood days we were impressed with the 
fertility of a certain author whose name so often 
appeared in the spelling books and readers, styled 
4non. He seemed to write more than Isaac 
Watts, or Shakespeare, or Blair. In the index, 
^nd scattered throughout all our books, was the 
name of Anon. He appeared in all styles of 
poetry and prose and dialogue. We wondered 
where he lived, what his age was, and how he 
looked. It was not until quite late in boyhood 
that we learned that Anon was an abbreviation 
for anonymous, and that he was sometimes the 
best saint and at other times the most extraor- 
dinary villain. 

After centuries of correspondence old Anony- 
mous is as fertile of thought and brain and 
stratagem as ever, and will probably keep on 
writing till the last fire burns up his pen and 
cracks to pieces his ink bottle. Anonymous letters 
sometimes have a mission of kindness and grati- 
tude and good cheer. Genuine modesty may 
sometimes hide the name of an epistolary author 
or authoress. It may be a ^ ^ God bless you' ' from 
some one who thinks herself hardly in a position 
to address you. It may be the discovery of a 
plot for your damage, in which the revelator does 
not care to take the responsibility of a witness. 
It may be any one of a thousand things that mean 
frankness and delicacy and honor and Christian 
principle. We have received anonymous letters 
which we have put away among our most sacred 
archives. 

170 



Anonymous Letters, 171 

But we suppose every one chiefly associates the 
idea of anonymous communications with every- 
thing cowardly and base. There are in all neigh- 
borhoods pertidious, sneaking, dastardly, tilthy, 
calumnious, vermin- infested wretches, spewed up 
from perdition, whose joy it is to write letters 
with tictitious signatures. Sometimes they take 
the shape of a valentine, the fourteenth of Feb- 
ruary being a great outlet for this obscene spawn. 
If your nose be long, or your limbs slenaer, or 
your waist thick around, they will be pictorially 
presented. Sometimes they take the form of a 
delicate threat that if you do not thus or so there 
will be a funeral at your house, yourself the chief 
object of interest. Sometimes they will be denun- 
ciatory of your friends. Once being called to 
preside at a meeting for the relief of the sewing 
women of PhiLidelphia, and having been called 
in the opening speech to say something about 
oppressive contractors, we received some twenty 
anonymous letters, the purport of which was that 
it would be unsafe for us to go out of doors after 
dark. Three months after moving to Brooklyn 
we preached a sermon reviewing one of the sins 
of the city, and anonymous letters came saying 
that we would not last six months in the city 
of churches. 

Sometimes the anonymous crime takes the form 
of a newspaper article ; and if the matter be pur- 
sued, the editor-in-chief puts it off on the man- 
aging editor, and the managing editor upon the 
book critic, and the book critic upon the reporter. 

Whether Adam or Eve or the serpent was the 
most to be blamed for the disappearance of the 
fair apple of reputation is uncertain ; the only 
thing you can be sure of is that the apple is gone. 
No honest man will ever write a thing for a news- 
paper, in editorial or any other column, that he 
would be ashamed to sign with the Christian 



172 Around the Tea-table. 

name that his mother had him baptized with. 
They who go skulking about under the editorial 
* ^ we, ' ' unwilling to acknowledge their identity, 
are more fit for Delaware whipping-posts than the 
position of public educators. It is high time 
that such hounds were muzzled. 

Let every young man know that when he is 
tempted to pen anything which requires him to 
disguise his handwriting he is in fearful danger. 
You despoil your own nature by such procedure 
more than you can damage any one else. Bowie- 
knife and dagger are more honorable than an 
anonymous pen sharpened for defamation of 
character. Better try putting strychnine in the 
flour barrel. Better 'mix ratsbane in the jelly 
cake. That behavior would be more elegant anol 
Christian. 

After much observation we have fixed upon this 
plan : If any one writes us in defamation of 
another, we adopt the opposite theory. If the 
letter says that the assaulted one lies, we take it 
as eulogistic of his veracity; or that he is un- 
chaste, we set him down as pure ; or fraudulent, 
we are seized with a desire to make him our 
executor. We do so on logical and unmistakable 
grounds. A defamatory letter is from the devil 
or his satellites. The devil hates only the good. 
The devil hates Mr. A ; ergo, Mr. A is good. 

Much of the work of the day of judgment will 
be with the authors of anonymous letters. The 
majority of other crimes against society were 
found out, but these creatures so disguised their 
handwriting in the main text of the letter, or so 
willfully misspelled the direction on the envelope, 
and put it in such a distant post-ofiice, and 
looked so innocent when you met them, that it 
shall be for the most part a dead secret till the 
books are opened ; and when that is done, we do 
not think these abandoned souls will wait to have 



A7iony77io2(s Letter's. 173 

their condemnation read, but, ashamed to meet 
the announcement, will leap i)ell-mell into the 
pit, crying, *' We wrote them." 

If, since the world stood, there have been com- 
posed and sent ofl* by mail or private postmen 
1,600,378 anonymous letters derogatory of char- 
acter, then 1,600,378 were vicious and damnable. 
If you are compelled to choose between writing a 
letter with false signature vitriolic of any man's 
integrity or any woman's honor on the one hand, 
and the writing a letter with a red-hot nail dipped 
in adder's poison on a sheet woven of leper 
scales, choose the latter. It were healthier, 
nobler, and could better endure the test of man's 
review and God's scrutiny. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 
BRAWN OR BRAIK 

GoYernor Wiseman (our oracular friend wh© 
talked in the style of an oration) was with us 
this evening at the tea-table, and we were men- 
tioning the fact that about thirty colleges last 
summer in the United States contested for the 
championship in boat-racing. About two hun- 
dred thousand young ladies could not sleep nights, 
so anxious were they to know whether Yale or 
Williams would be the winner. The newspapers 
gave three and four columns to the particulars, 
the telegraph wires thrilled the victory to all 
parts of the land. Some of the religious papers 
condemned the whole affair, enlarging upon the 
strained wrists, broken blood-vessels and barbaric 
animalism of men who ought to have been row- 
ing their race with the Binomial Theorem for 
one oar and Kames' Elements of Criticism for 
the other. 

For the most part, we sympathized with the 
boys, and confess that at our hotel we kept care- 
ful watch of the bulletin to see whose boat came 
in ahead. We are disposed to applaud anything 
that will give our young men muscular develop- 
ment. Students have such a tendency to lounge, 
and mope, and chew, and eat almond-nuts at 
midnight, and read novels after they go to bed, 
the candlestick set up on Webster's dictionary or 
the Bible, that we prize anything that makes 
them cautious about their health, as they must 
be if they would enter the list of contestants. 
How many of our country boys enter the fresh- 
man class of college in robust health, which lasts 

174 



Bra wn o r Bra in . 175 

them about a twelvemonth ; then in the sopho- 
more they lose their liver; in the junior they 
lose their stomach; in the senior they lose their 
back bone; graduating skeletons, more fit for an 
anatomical museum than the bar or pulpit. 

*^ Midnight oil," so much eulogized, is the 
poorest kind of kerosene. Where hard study kills 
one student, bad habits kill a hundred. Kirk 
White, while at Cambridge, wrote beautiful 
hymns; but if he had gone to bed at ten o'clock 
that night instead of three o'clock the next morn- 
ing, he would have been of more service to the 
w^orld and a healthier example to all collegians. 
Much of the learning of the day is morbid, and 
much of the religion bilious. We want, first of 
all, a clean heart, and next a strong stomach. 
Falling from grace is often chargeable to derange- 
ment of gastric juices. Oar and bat may become 
salutary weapons. 

But, after all, there was something wrong about 
those summer boat-races. A student with a stout 
arm, and great girth, and full chest, and nothing 
else, is not at all admirable. Mind and body 
need to be driven tandem, the body for the wheel 
horse and the intellect the leader. We w^ant 
what is now proposed in some directions — a grand 
collegiate literary race. Let the mental contest 
be on the same week with the muscular, Let 
Yale and Harvard and Williams and Princeton 
and Dartmouth see who has the champion among' 
scholars. Let there be a Waterloo in belles- 
lettres and rhetoric and mathematics and philoso- 
phy. Let us see whether the students of Doctors 
McCosh, or Porter, or Campbell, or Smith are 
most worthy to wear the belt. About twelve 
o'clock at noon let the literary flotilla start prow 
and prow^, oar-lock and oar-lock. Let Helicon 
empty its waters to sw^ell the river of knowledge 
on which they row. Right foot on right rib of 



176 Around the Tea-table. 

the boat, and left foot on the left rib — bend into 
it, my hearties, bend! — and our craft come out 
four lengths ahead. 

Give the brain a chance as well as the arm. Do 
not let the animal eat up the soul. Let the body 
be the well-fashioned hulk, and the mind the 
white sails, all hoisted, everything, from tiying 
jib to spanker, bearing on toward the harbor of 
glorious achievement. When that boat starts, we 
want to be on the bank to cheer, and after sun- 
down help fill the air with sky-rockets- 

* ^ By the way, ' ' I said, ^ ' Governor Wiseman, 
<io you not think that we need more out-door 
exercise, and that contact with the natural world 
would have a cheering tendency? Governor, do 
you ever have the blues?'' 

The governor, putting his knife across the plate 
and throwing his spectacles up on his forehead, 
replied : 

Almost every nature, however sprightly, some- 
times will drop into a minor key, or a subdued 
mood that in common parlance is recognized as 
^ ' the blues. ' ' There may be no adverse causes at 
work, but somehow the bells of the soul stop ring- 
ing, and you feel like sitting quiet, and you strike 
off fifty per cent from all your worldly and 
spiritual prospects. The immediate cause may 
be a northeast wind, or a balky liver, or an en- 
larged spleen, or pickled oysters at twelve o'clock 
the night before. 

In such depressed state no one can afford to sit 
for an hour. First of all let him get up and go 
out of doors. Fresh air, and the faces of cheer- 
ful men, and pleasant women, and frolicsome 
children, will in fifteen minutes kill moping. 
The first moment your friend strikes the key- 
board of your soul it will ring music. A hen 
might as well try on populous Broadway to hatch 
out a feathery group as for a man to successfully 



Bra W7i or Bra in, 177 

brood over his ills in lively society. Do not go 
for relief among those who feel as badly as you 
do. Let not toothache, and rheumatism, and 
hypochondria go to see ^toothache, rheumatism 
and hypochondria. On one block in Brooklyn 
live a doctor, an undertaker and a clergyman. 
That is not the row for a nervous man to walk on, 
lest he soon need all three. Throw back all the 
shutters of your soul and let the sunlight of 
genial faces shine in. 

Besides that, wdiy sit ye here with the blues, 
ye favored sons and daughters of men? Shone 
upon by such stars, and breathed on by such air, 
and sung to by so many pleasant sounds, you 
ought not to be seen moping. Especially if light 
from the better world strikes its aurora through 
your night sky, ought you be cheerful. You can 
afford to have a rough luncheon by the way if it 
is soon to end amid the banqueters in white. . 
Sailing toward such a blessed port, do not have 
your flag at half mast. Leave to those w^ho take 
too much wine ''the gloomy raven tapping at the 
chamber door, on the night's Plutonian shore,'' ■ 
and give us the robin red-breast and the chaffinch. 
Let some one w^ith a strong voice give out the - 
long- metre doxology, and the whole world 
* ' Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. ' ' 

^^But do you not suppose. Governor Wiseman, 
that every man has his irritated days?" 

Yes, yes, responded the governor. There are *. 
times when everything seems to go wrong. From 
seven o'clock a. m. till ten p. m. affairs are in a' 
twist. You rise in the morning, and the room is ; 
cold, and a button is off, and the breakfast is ' 
tough, and the stove smokes, and the pipes burst, 
and you start down the street nettled from head" 
to foot. All day long things are adverse. Insin- 
uations, petty losses, meanness on the part of 
customers. The ink bottle upsets and spoils the 



178 Around the Tea-table, 

carpet. Some one gives a wrong turn to the 
damper, and the gas escapes. An agent comes in 
determined to insure your life, when it is already 
insured for more than it is worth, and you are 
afraid some one will knock you on the head to 
get the price of your policy ; but he sticks to you, 
showing you pictures of old Time and the hour- 
glass, and Death's scythe and a skeleton, making 
it quite certain that you will die before your 
time unless you take out papers in his company. 
Besides this, you have a cold in your head, and 
a grain of dirt in your eye, and you are a walk- 
ing uneasiness. The day is out of joint, and no 
surgeon can set it. 

The probability is that if you would look at 
the weather-vane you would find that the wind is 
northeast, and you might remember that yoa have 
lost much sleep lately. It might happen to be 
that you are out of joint instead of the day. Be 
careful and not write many letters while you are 
in that irritated mood. You will pen some 
things that you will be sorry for afterward. 

Let us remember that these spiked nettles of 
life are part of our discipline. Life would get 
nauseating if it were all honey. That table would 
be poorly set that had on it nothing but treacle. 
We need a little vinegar, mustard, pepper and 
horse-radish that brings the tears even when we 
do not feel pathetic. If this world were all 
smoothness, we would never be ready for emigra- 
tion to a higher and better. Blustering March 
and weeping^ April prepare us for shining May. 
This world is a poor hitching post. Instead of 
tying fast on the cold mountains, we had better 
whip up and hasten on toward the warm inn 
where our good friends are looking out of the 
window, watching to see us come up. 

Interrupting the governor at this point, we 
asked him if he did not think that rowing, baU 



Bra zvn o r Bra in . 179 

playing and other athletic exercises might be 
made an antidote to the morbid religion that is 
sometimes manifest. The governor replied : 

No doubt much of the Christian character of 
the day lacks in swarthiness and power. It is 
gentle enough, and active enough, and well mean- 
ing enougli, but is wanting in moral muscle. It 
can sw^eetly sing at a prayer meeting, and smile 
graciously when it is the right time to smile, and 
makes an excellent nurse to pour out with steady 
hand a few drops of peppermint for a child that 
feels disturbances under the waistband, but has 
no qualification for the robust Christian w^ork that 
is demanded. 

One reason for this is the ineffable softness of 
much of what is called Christian literature. The 
attempt is to bring us up on tracts made up of 
thin exhortations and goodish maxims. A nerve- 
less treatise on commerce or science in that style 
would be crumpled up by the first merchant and 
thrown into his waste-basket. Religious tw^addle 
is of no more use than worldly twaddle. If a 
man has nothing to say, he had better keep his 
pen waped and his tongue still. There needs an 
infusion of strong Anglo-Saxon into religious 
literature, and a brawnier manliness and more 
impatience with insipidity, though it be prayer- 
ful and sanctimonious. He who stands with 
irksome repetitions asking people to ^'Come ta 
Jesus, ' ' w^hile he gives no strong common-sense 
reason why they should come, drives back the 
souls of men. If, wdth all the thrilling realities 
of eternity at hand, a man has nothing to write 
w^hich can gather up and master the thoughts and 
feelings of men, his writing and speaking are a 
slander on the religion which he wishes to 
eulogize. 

Morbidity in religion might be partially cured 
by more out-door exercise. There are some duties 



i8o Around the Tea-table, 

i,ve can perform better on our feet than on our 
knees. If we carry the grace of God with us 
down into every-day practical Christian work, we 
will get more spiritual strength in ^n^ minutes 
than by ten hours of kneeling. If Daniel had 
not served God save when three times a day he 
worshiped toward the temple, the lions would 
liave surely eaten him up. The school of Christ 
is as much out-of-doors as in-doors. Hard, rough 
work for God will develop an athletic soul. 
Beligion will not conquer either the admiration 
or the affections of men by effeminacy, bu* by 
strength. Because the heart is soft is no reason 
w^hy the head should be soft. The spirit of 
genuine religion is a spirit of great power. When 
€hrist rides in apocalyptic vision, it is not on a 
weak and stupid beast, but on a horse — emblem 
of majesty and strength : *■ ^ And he went forth con- 
quering and to conquer. ' ' 



CHAPTER XIv. 
WARM-WEATHER RELIGION. 

It takes more grace to be an earnest and useful 
Christian in summer than in any other season. 
The very destitute, through lack of fuel and thick 
clothing, may find the winter the trying season, 
but those comfortably circumstanced find summer 
the Thermopylae that teste their Christian courage 
and endurance. 

The spring is suggestive of God and heaven and 
a resurrection day. That eye must be blind that 
does not see God's footstep in the new grass, and 
hear His voice in the call of the swallow at the 
eaves. In the white blossoms of the orchards we 
find suggestion of those whose robes have been 
made white in the blood of the Lamb. A May 
morning is a door opening into heaven. 

So autumn mothers a great many moral and 
religious suggestions. The season of corn husking, 
the gorgeous woods that are becoming the cata- 
falque of the dead year, remind the dullest of his 
own fading and departure. 

But summer fatigues and weakens, and no man 
keeps his soul in as desirable a frame unless by 
positive resolution and especial implorations. 
Pulpit and pew often get stupid together, and 
ardent devotion is adjourned until September. 

But who can aff'ord to lose two months out of 
each year, when the years are so short and so 
few? He who stops religious growth in July and 
August will require the next six months to get 
over it. Nay, he never recovers. At the season 
when the fields are most full of leafage and life 
let us not be lethargic and stupid. 

i&i 



1 82 Around the Tea-table, 

Let us remember that iniquity does not cease in 
summer-time. She never takes a vacation. The 
devil never leaves town. The child of want, liv- 
ing up that dark alley, has not so much fresh air 
nor sees as many flowers as in winter-time. In 
€old weather the frost blossoms on her windoy/ 
pane, and the snow falls in wreaths in the alley. 
God pity the wretchedness that pants and sw^eats 
and festers and dies on the hot pavements and in 
the suffocating cellars of the town ! 

Let us remember that our exit from this world 
will more probably be in the summer than in any 
other season, and we cannot afford to die at a 
time when we are least alert and worshipful. 
At mid-summer the average of departures is larger 
than in cool w^eather. The sun-strokes, the 
dysenteries, the fevers, the choleras, have affinity 
for July and August. On the edge of summer 
Death stands whetting his scythe for a great har- 
vest. We are most careful to have our doors 
locked, and our windows fastened, and our 
''burglar alarm'' set at times when thieves are 
most busy, and at a season of the year when 
diseases are most active in their burglaries of 
life we need to be ready. 

Our charge, therefore, is, make no adjournment 
of your religion till cool weather. Whether you 
stay in town, or seek the farm house, or the sea- 
shore, or the mountains, be faithful in prayer, 
in Bible reading and in attendance upon Christian 
ordinances. He who throws away two months 
of life wastes that for which many a dying sin- 
ner would have been willing to give all his posses- 
sions when he found that the harvest was past 
and the summer was ended. 

The thermometer to-day has stood at a high 
mark. The heat has been fierce. As far as pos- 
sible people have kept within doors or walked on 
the shady side of the street. But we can have 



Warm- weather Religioji, 183 

but a faint idea of what the people suffer cross- 
ing a desert or in a tropical clime. The head 
faints, the tongue swells and deathly sickness 
comes upon the whole body when long exposed to 
the summer sun. I see a whole caravan pressing 
on through the hot sands. ' ' Oh, ' ' say the camel- 
drivers, ^ ' for water and shade ! " At last they see 
an elevation against the sky. They revive at the 
sight and push on. That which they saw proves 
to be a great rock, and camels and drivers throw 
themselves down under the long shadow. Isaiah, 
who lived and wrote in a scorching climate, draws 
his figure from what he had seen and felt when 
he represents God as the shadow of a great rock 
in a weary land. 

Many people have found this world a desert- 
march. They go half consumed of trouble all their 
days. But glory be to God ! we are not turned out 
on a desert to die. Here is the long, cool, cer- 
tain, refreshing shadow of the Lord. 

A tree, when in full leafage, drops a great deal 
of refreshment; but in a little while the sun 
strikes through, and you keep shifting your posi- 
tion, until, after a while, the sun is set at such 
a point that you have no shade at all. But go in 
the heart of some great rock, such as you see in 
Yosemite or the Alps, and there is everlasting 
shadow. There has been thick shade there for 
six thousand years, and will be for the next six 
thousand. So our divine Kock, once covering us, 
always covers us. The same yesterday, to-day 
and for ever! always good, always kind, always 
sympathetic ! You ' often hold a sunshade over 
your head passing along the road or a street ; but 
after a while your arm gets tired, and the very 
effort to create the shadow makes you weary. 
But the rock in the mountains, with fingers of 
everlasting stone, holds its own shadow. So God's 
sympathy needs no holding up from us. Though 



184 Around the Tea-table. 

we are too weak from sickness or trouble to do 
anything but lie down, over us He stretches the 
shadow of His benediction. 

It is our misfortune that we mistake God's 
shadow for the night. If a man come and stand 
between you and the sun, his shadow falls upon 
you. So God sometimes comes and stands be- 
tween us and worldly successes, and His shadow 
falls upon us, and we wrongly think that it is 
night. As a father in a garden stoops down to 
kiss his child the shadow of his body falls upon 
it; and so many of the dark misfortunes of our 
life are not God going away from us, but our 
heavenly Father stooping down to give us the 
kiss of His infinite and everlasting love. It is the 
shadow of a sheltering Rock, and not of a de- 
vouring lion. 

Instead of standing right out in the blistering 
noon- day sun of earthly trial and trouble, come 
under the Rock. You may drive into it the long- 
est caravan of disasters. Room for the suffering, 
heated, sunstruck, dying, of all generations, in 
the shadow of the great Rock : 

^ * Rock of ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in Thee. ' ' 



CHAPTER XLI. 
HIDING EGGS FOR EASTER. 

Those who were so unfortunate as to have heem 
bom and brought up in the city know nothing- 
about that chapter in a boy's history of which I 
Bpeak. 

About a month before Easter there comes to the 
farmhouse a scarcity of eggs. The farmer's wife- 
begins to abuse the weasels and the cats as the- 
probable cause of the paucity. The feline tribe 
are assaulted with many a harsh ''Scat!" on the 
suspicion of their fondness for omelets in the 
raw. Custards fail from the table. The Dom- 
inick hens are denounced as not worth their 
mush. Meanwhile, the boys stand round the cor- 
ner in a broad grin at what is the discomfiture of 
the rest of the family. 

The truth must be told that the boys, in antici- 
pation of Easter, have, in some hole in the mow- 
er some barrel in the wagon- house, been hiding^ 
eggs. If the voungsters understand their bus- 
iness, they will compromise the matter, and see- 
that at least a small supply goes to the house 
every day. Too great greed on the part of the boy 
will discover the whole plot, and the charge will 
be made: ''De Witt, I believe j^ou are hiding- 
the eggs!" Forthwith the boy is collared and 
compelled to disgorge his possessions. 

Now, there is nothing more trying to a boy 
than, after great care in accumulating these shelly^ 
resources, to have to place them in a basket ana 
bring them forth to the light two weeks before 
Easter. Boys, therefore, manage with skill and 
dexterity. At this season of the year you see- 

185 



1 86 Around ike Tea- fable, 

them larking much about the hayrick and tho 
iiay-loft. You see them crawling out from stacks 
•of straw and walking away rapidly w^th their 
hands behind them. They look very innocent, 
for I have noticed that the look of innocence in 
boys is proportioned to the amount of mischief 
with which they are stuffed. They seem to be 
detennined to risk their lives on mow-poles where 
the hay lies thin. They come out from under the 
stable floor in a despicable state of toilet, and 
cannot give any excuse for their depreciation of 
.apparel. Hens flutter off the nest with an un- 
usual squawk, for the boys cannot wait any long- 
er for the slow process of laying, and hens have 
BO business to stand in the way of Easter. The 
most tedious hours of my boyhood were spent in 
waiting for a hen to get off' her nest. No use to 
scare her off, for then she will get mad, and just 
as like as not take the eg<^ with her. Indeed, I 
think the boy is excusable for his haste if his 
brother has a dozen eggs and he has only eleven. 

At this season of the year the hens are melan- 
choly. They want to hatch, but how^ can they? 
They have the requisite disposition, and the ca- 
pacity, and the feathers, and the nest, and every- 
thing but the eggs. With that deficit, they some- 
times sit obstinately and defy the boy's ap- 
proaches. Many a boy has felt the sharp bill of 
old Dominick strike the back of his hand, in- 
flicting a wound that would have roused up the 
whole farmhouse to see what was the matter had 
it not been that the boy wanted to excite no sus- 
picion as to the nature of his expedition. Im- 
mediately over the hen's head comes the boy's 
•cap, and there is a scatteration of feathers all over 
the hay-mow, and the boy is victor. 

But at last the evening before Easter comes. 
While the old people are on the piazza the chil- 
dren come in with the accumulated treasures of 



Hiding Eggs for Easter. 187 

many weeks, and put down the baskets. Eggs 
large and small, white-shelled and brown. Cochin- 
Chinas and Brahmapooters. The character of the 
hens is vindicated. The cat may now lie in the 
Bun without being kicked by false suspicions. 
The surprised exclamation of parents more than 
compensates the boys for the strategy of long con- 
cealment. The meanest thing in the world is for 
father and mother not to look surprised in such 
circumstances. 

It sometimes happens that, in the agitation of 
bringing the eggs into the household harbor, the 
boy drops the hat or the basket, and the whole 
enterprise is shipwrecked. From our own experi- 
ence, it is very difficult to pick up eggs after you 
have once dropped them. You have found the 
game experience in after life. Your hens laid a 
whole nestful of golden eggs on Wall street. You 
had gathered them up. You were bringing them 
in. You expected a world of congratulations, 
but just the day before the consummation, some- 
thing adverse ran against you, and you dropped 
the basket, and the eggs broke. Wise man were 
you if, instead of sitting down to cry or attempt- 
ing to gather up the spilled yolks, you built new 
nests and invited a new laying. 

It is sometimes found on Easter morning that 
the eggs have been kept too long. The boy's in- 
tentions were good enough, but the enterprise had 
been too protracted, and the casting out of the 
dozen was sudden and precipitate. Indeed, that 
is the trouble with some older boys I wot of. 
They keep their money, or their brain, or their 
influence hidden till it rots. They are not will- 
ing to come forth day by day on a humble mis- 
sion, doing what little good they may, but are 
keeping themselves hidden till some great Easter- 
day of triumph, and then they will astonish the 
Church and the world ; but they find that f aeul- 



l88 Around the Tea-table. 

ties too long hidden are faculties rnined. Better 
for an egg to have succeeded in making one plain 
cake for a poor man's table than to have failed 
in making a banquet for the House of Lords. 

That was a glad time when on Easter morning 
the eggs went into the saucepan, and came out 
etriped, and spotted, and blue, and yellow, and 
the entire digestive capacity of the children was 
tested. You have never had anything so good to 
eat since. You found the eggs. You hid them. 
They were your contribution to the table. Since 
then you have seen eggs scrambled, eggs poached, 
eggs in omelet, eggs boiled, eggs done on one side 
and eggs in a nog, but you shall never find any- 
thing like the flavor of that Easter morning m 
boyhood. 

Alas for the boys in town ! Easter comes to 
them on stilts, and they buy their eggs out of the 
store. There is no room for a boy to swing round. 
There is no good place in town to fly a kite, or 
trundle a hoop, or even shout without people *s 
throwing up the window to see who is killed. The 
holidays are robbed of half their life because 
some wiseacre will persist in telling him who 
Santa Claus is, while yet he is hanging up his 
first pair of stockings. Here the boy pays half 
a dollar for a bottle of perfume as big as his 
finger, when out of town, for nothing but the 
trouble of breathing it, he may smell a country 
full of new-mown hay and wild honeysuckle. 
In a painted bath-tub he takes his Saturday bath 
careful lest he hit his head against the spigot, 
while in the meadow-brook the boys plunge in 
wild glee, and pluck up health and long life from 
the pebbly bottom. Oh, the joy in the spring 
day, when, after long teasing of mother to let you 
take off your shoes, you dash out on the cool grass 
barefoot, or down the road, the dust curling 
about the instep in warm enjoyment, and, hence-, 



Hiding Eggs for Easter, 189 

forth, for months, there shall be no shoes to tie 
or blacken. 

Let us send the boys out into the country every 
year for an airing. If their grandfather and 
grandmother be yet alive, they will give them a 
good time. They will learn in a little while the 
mysteries of the hay-mow, how to drive oxen 
and how to keep Easter. They will take the old 
people back to the time when you yourself were 
a boy. There will be for the grandson an extra 
cake in each oven. And grandfather and grand- 
mother will sit and watch the prodigy, and 
wonder if any other family ever had such grand- 
children. It will be a good thing when the even- 
ings are short, and the old folks' eyesight la 
somewhat dim, if you can set up in their house 
for a little while one or two of these lights of 
childhood. For the time the aches and pains of 
old age will be gone, and they will feel as lithe 
and merry as when sixty years ago they them- 
selves rummaged hayrick, and mow and wagon- 
house, hiding eggs for Easter. 



CHAPTER XI.II. 
SINK OK SWIM. 

We entered the ministry with a mortal horror 
of extemporaneous speaking. Each week we 
wrote two sermons and a lecture all out, fom the 
text to the amen. We did not dare to give out 
Mie notice of a prayer-meeting unless it was on 
paper. We were a slave to manuscript, and the 
chains were galling; and three months more of 
such work would have put us in the graveyard. 
We resolved on emancipation. The Sunday night 
was approaching when we expected to make 
violent rebellion against this bondage of pen and 
paper. We had an essay about ten minutes long 
on some Christian subject, which we proposed to 
preach as an introduction to the sermon, resolved, 
at the close of that brief composition, to launch 
out on the great sea of extemporaneousness. 

It so happened that the coming Sabbath night 
was to be eventful in the village. The trustees 
of the church had been building a gasometer 
back of the church, and the night I speak of the 
building was for the first time to be lighted in 
the modern way. The church was, of course, 
crowded — ^not so much to hear the preacher as to 
see how the gas would burn. Many were unbe- 
lieving, and said that there would be an ex- 
plosion, or a big fire, or that in the midst of the 
service the lights would go out. Several brethren 
disposed to hang on to old customs declared that 
candles and oil were the only fit material for 
lighting a church, and they denounced the inno- 
vation as indicative of vanity on the part of the 
new-comers. They used oil in the ancient temple, 

190 



Sink or Swim, 191 

and it was that wliich ran down on Aaron's 
beard, and anything that was good enough for 
the whiskers of an old-time priest was good 
enough for a country meeting-house. These stick- 
lers for the oil were present that night, hoping — 
and I think some of them secretly praying — that 
the gas might go out. 

With our ten-minute manuscript we went into- 
the pulpit, all in a tremor. Although the gas did 
not burn as brightly as its friends had hoped, 
still it was bright enough to show the people the 
perspiration that stood in beads on our forehead. 
We began our discourse, and every sentence gave- 
us the feeling that we were one step nearer the^ 
gallows. We spoke very slowly, so as to make the 
ten-minute notes last fifteen minutes. During the 
preachment of the brief manuscript we conclud- 
ed that we had never been called to the ministry. 
We were in a hot bath of excitement. People 
noticed our trepidation, and supposed it was be- 
cause we were afraid the gas would go out. Alas \ 
our fear was that it would not go out. As we 
came toward the close of our brief we joined the- 
anti-gas party, and prayed that before we came 
to the last written line something would burst, 
and leave us in the darkness. Indeed, we dis~ 
covered an encouraging flicker amid the burners, 
which gave us the hope that the brief which lay 
before us would be long enough for all practical 

Eurposes, and that the hour of execution might 
e postponed to some other night. As we came- 
to the sentence next to the last the lights fell 
down to half their size, and we could just man- 
age to see the audience as they were floating away 
from our vision. W^e said to ourselves, ^^ Why- 
can 't these lights be obliging, and go out en- 
tirely?" The wish was gratified. As we finished 
the last line of our brief, and stood on the verge 
of rhetorical destruction, the last glimmer of light 



^92 Around the Tea-table, 

was extinguished. **It is impossible to prcceed, '* 
we cried out; ** receive the benediction!" 

We crawled down the pulpit in a state of ex- 
hilaration ; we never before saw such handsome 
■darkness. The odor of the escaping gas was to 
ds like ** gales fromAraby. '* Did a frightened 
young man ever have such fortunate deliverance? 
The providence was probably intended to humble 
the trustees, yet the scared preacher took advan- 
tage of it. 

But after we got home we saw the wickedness 
of being in such dread. As the Lord got us out 
of that predicament, we resolved never again to be 
cornered in one similar. Forthwith the thralldom 
was broken, we hope never again to be felt. How 
•demeaning that a man with a message from the 
Lord Almighty should be dependent upon paper- 
mills and gasometers ! Paper is a non-conductor 
of gospel electricity. If a men have a five- thou- 
sand -dollar bill of goods to sell a customer, he 
'does not go up to the purchaser and say, '^1 have 
ssome remarks to make to you about these goods, 
but just wait till I get out my manuscript. ' ' Be- 
fore he got through reading the argument the 
customer would be in the next door, making pur- 
chases from another house. 

What cowardice ! Because a few critical hearers 
sit with lead-pencils out to mark down the inac- 
-curacies of extemporaneousness, shall the pulpit 
•cower? If these critics do not repent, they will 
:go to hell, and take their lead-pencils with them. 
While the great congregation are ready to tak© 
the bread hot out of the oven shall the minis- 
ter be crippled in his work because the village 
doctor or lawyer sits carping before him? To 
please a few learned ninnies a thousand ministers 
rsit writing sermons on Saturday night till near 
the break of day, their heads hot, their feet cold, 
and their nerves a-twitch. Sermons born on 



Si7ik or Swim. 193 

Saturday night are apt to have the rickets. In- 
stead of cramping our chests over writing-desks, 
and being the slaves of the pen, let us attend to 
our physical health, that we may have more pul- 
pit independence. 

It would be a grand thing if every minister felt 
strong enough in body to thrash any man in his 
audience improperly behaving, but always kept 
back from such assault by the fact that it would be 
wrong to do so. There is a good deal o^ heart 
and head in our theology, but not enough liver 
and backbone. We need, a more stalwart Chris- 
tian character, more roast beef rare, and less 
calf 's-foot jelly. This will make the pulpit more 
bold and the pew more manly. 

Which thoughts came to us this week as we 
visited again the village church aforesaid, and 
preached out of the same old Bible in which, years 
ago, we laid the ten-minute manuscript, and we 
looked upon the same lights that once behaved so 
badly. But we found it had been snowing since 
the time we lived there, and heads that then 
were black are white now, and some of the eyes 
which looked up to us that memorable night 
when the gasometer failed us, thirteen years ago, 
are closed now, and for them all earthly lights 
liave gone out for ever. 



CHAPTER XIvIII. 

SHELLS FKOM THE BEACH. 

Our summer-house is a cottage at East Hamp- 
ton, Long Island, overlooking the sea. Seventeen 
vessels in sight, schooners, clippers, hermaphro- 
dite brigs, steamers, great craft and small. 
Wonder where they come from, and where they 
are going to, and who is aboard? Just enough 
clovertops to sweeten the briny air into the most 
delightful tonic. We do not know the geological 
history of this place, but imagine that the rest of 
Long Island is the discourse of which East 
Hampton is the peroration. There are enough 
bluffs to relieve the dead level, enough grass to 
clothe the hills, enough trees to drop the shadow, 
enough society to keep one from inanity, and 
enough quietude to soothe twelve months of per- 
turbation. The sea hums us to sleep at night, and 
fills our dreams with intimations of the land 
where the harmony is like 'Hhe voice of many 
waters. ' ' In smooth weather the billows take 
a minor key ; but when the storm gives them the 
pitch, they break forth with the clash and up- 
roar of an overture that fills the heavens and 
makes the beach tremble. Strange that that 
which rolls perpetually and never rests itself 
should be a psalm of rest to others ! With these 
sands of the beach we help fill the hour-glass of 
life. Every moment of the day there comes in 
over the waves a flotilla of joy and rest and 
health, and our piazza is the wharf where the 
stevedores unburden their cargo. We have sun- 
rise with her bannered hosts in cloth of gold, 
and moonrise with her innumerable helmets ana 

194 



Shells frovi the Beach. 195. 

shields and swords and ensigns of silver, the 
morning and the night being the two buttresses- 
from which are swung a bridge of cloud sus- 
pended on strands of sunbeam, all the glories of 
the sky passing to and fro with airy feet in silent 
procession. 

We have wandered far and wide, but found no- 
such place to rest in. We can live here forty- 
eight hours in one day, and in a night get a Rip 
Van Winkle sleep, waking up without finding 
our gun rusty or our dog dead. 

No wonder that Mr. James, the first minister 
of this place, lived to eighty years of age, and 
Mr. Hunting, his successor, lived to be eighty- 
one years of age, and Doctor Buel, his successor, 
lived to be eighty-two years of age. Indeed, it 
seems impossible for a minister regularly settled 
in this place to get out of the world before his^ 
eightieth year. It has been only in cases of ' 'sta- 
ted supply, ' ' or removal from the place, that early 
demise has been possible. And in each of these^ 
cases of decease at fourscore it was some un- 
necessary imprudence on their part, or who 
knows but that they might be living yet? That 
which is good for settled pastors being good for 
other people, you may judge the climate here is 
salutary and delectable for all. 

The place was settled in 1648, and that is so- 
long ago that it will probably never be unsettled. 
The Puritans took possession of it first, and have- 
always held it for the Sabbath, for the Bible and 
for God. Much maligned Puritans ! The world 
will stop deriding them after a w^hile, and the 
caricaturists of their stalwart religion will want 
to claim them as ancestors, but it will be too late 
then ; for since these latter-day folks lie about 
the Puritans now, we will not believe them when, 
they want to get into the illustrious genealogical 
line. 



196 Aroujid the Tea-table, 

East Hampton has always been a place of good 
morals. One of the earliest Puritan regulations 
of this place was that licensed liquor-sellers 
should not sell to the young, and that half a pint 
only should be given to four men — an amount so 
small that most drinkers would consider it only 
a tantalization. A woman here, in those days, 
was sentenced ^'to pay a fine of fifteen dollars, 
or to stand one hour with a cleft stick upon her 
tongue, for saying that her husband had brought 
her to a place where there was neither gospel nor 
magistracy. ' ' She deserved punishment of some 
kind, but they ought to have let her off with a 
fine, for no woman's tongue ought to be inter- 
fered with. When in olden time a Yankee ped- 
dler with the measles went to church here on the 
Sabbath for the purpose of selling his knick- 
knacks, his behavior was considered so perfidious 
that before the peddler left town the next morn- 
ing the young men gave him a free ride upon 
what seems to us an uncomfortable and insuffi- 
cient vehicle, namely, a rail, and then dropped 
him into the duck-pond. But such conduct was 
not sanctioned by the better people of the place. 
Nothing could be more unwholesome for a man 
with the measles than a plunge in a duck-pond, 
and so the peddler recovered one thousand dollars 
damage. So you see that every form of misde- 
meanor was sternly put down. Think of the high 
state of morals and religion which induced this 
people, at an early day, at a political town-meet- 
ing, to adopt this decree: *'We do sociate and 
conjoin ourselves and successors to be one town 
or corporation, and do for ourselves and our suc- 
oessors, and such as shall be adjoined to us at any 
time hereafter, enter into combination and con- 
federation together to maintain and preserve the 
puritv of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 
whicn we now possess. " 



Shells from the Beach, 197 

The pledge of that day has been fully kept; 
and for sobriety, industry, abhorrence of evil and 
adherence to an unmixed gospel, we know not the 
equal of this place. 

That document of two centuries ago reads 
strangely behind the times, but it will be some 
hundreds of years yet before other communities 
come up to the point where that document stops. 
All our laws ana institutions are yet to be Chris- 
tianized. The Puritans took possession of this 
land in the name of Christ, and it belongs to Him ; 
and if people do not like that religion, let them 
go somewhere else. They can find many lands 
where there is no Christian religion to bother 
them. Let them emigrate to Greenland, and we 
will provide them with mittens, or to the South 
Sea Islands, and we will send them ice-coolers. 
This land is for Christ. Our Legislatures and 
Congresses shall yet pass laws as radically evangel- 
ical as the venerable document above referred 
to. East Hampton, instead of being two hundre<i 
years behind, is two hundred years ahead. 

Glorious place to summer ! Darwin and Stuart, 
Mill and Huxley and Renan have not been 
through here yet. May they miss the train the 
day they start for this place ! With an Atlantic 
Ocean in which to wash, and a great-hearted, 
practical, sympathetic gospel to take care of all 
the future, who could not be happy in East 
Hampton? 

The strong sea-breeze ruffles the sheet upon 
which we write, and the * * white caps' ' are tossing 
up as if in greeting to Him who walks the pave- 
ments of emerald and opal : 

**Waft, waft, ye winds, His story, 
And you, ye waters, roll, 
Till, like a sea of glory, 
It spreads from pole to pole. * * 



CHAPTER XLIV. 
CATCHING THE BAY MAEE. 

It may be a lack of education on our part, but 
we confess to a dislike for horse-races. We never 
-attended but three ; the first in our boyhood, the 
second at a country fair, where we were deceived 
as to what would transpire, the third last Sab- 
bath morning. We see our friends flush with 
indignation ?.t this last admission ; but let them 
wait a moment before they launch their verdict. 

Our horse was in the pasture-field. It was al- 
most time to start for church, and we needed the 
animal harnessed. The boy came in saying it was 
impossible to catch the bay mare, and calling for 
our assistance. We had on our best clothes, and 
did not feel like exposing ourself to rough usage; 
but we vaulted the fence with pail of water in 
hand, expecting to try the eff'ect of rewards rather 
than punishments. The horse came out generously 
to meet us. We said to the boy, *'She is very 
tame. Strange you cannot catch her. ' ' She came 
near enough to cautiously smell the pail, when 
she suddenly changed her mind, and with one 
wild snort dashed off to the other end of the field. 

Whether she was not thirsty, or was critical of 
the manner of presentation, or had apprehensions 
of our motive, or was seized with desire for exer- 
cise in the open air, she gave us no chance to 
guess. We resolved upon more caution of ad- 
vance and gentler voice, and so laboriously ap- 
proached her ; for though a pail of water is lignt 
for a little way, it gets heavy after you have gone 
-a considerable distance, though its contents b« 
half spilled away. 

198 



Catching the Bay Mare, 199 

This time we succeeded in getting? her nose in- 
serted into the bright beverage. We called her 
by pet names, addressing her as '^Poor Dolly!" 
not wishing to suggest any pauperism by that 
term, but only sympathy for the sorrows of the 
brute creation, and told her that she was the 
finest horse that ever was. It seemed to take well, 
Flattery always does — with horses. 

We felt that the time had come for us to pro- 
duce the rope halter, which with our left hand 
we had all the while kept secreted behind our 
back. We put it over her neck, when the beast 
wheeled, and we seized her by the point where 
the copy-books say we ought to take Time, 
namely, the forelock. But we had poor luck. 
We ceased all caressing tone, and changed the 
subjunctive mood for the imperative. There 
never was a greater divergence of sentiment than 
at that instant between us and the bay mare. She 

gulled one way, we pulled the other. Turning 
er back upon us, she ejaculated into the air two 
shining horseshoes, both the shape of the letter 
0, the one interjection in contempt for the min- 
istry, and the other in contempt for the press. 

But catch the horse we must, for we were bound 
to be at church, though just then we did not feel 
at all devotional. We resolved, therefore, with 
the boy, to run her down ; so, by the way of 
making an animated start, we slung the pail at 
the horse's head, and put out on a Sunday morn- 
ing horse-race. Every time she stood at the other 
end of the field waiting for us to come up. She 
trotted, galloped and careered about us, with an 
occasional neigh cheerfully given to encourage us 
in the pursuit. We were getting more unpre- 
pared in body, mind and soul for the sanctuary. 
Meanwhile, quite a household audience lined the 
fence; the children and visitors shouting like ex- 
cited Eomans in an amphitheatre at a contest with 



200 Around the Tea-table. 

wild beasts, and it was uncertain whether the 
audience was in sympathy with us or the bay 
mare. 

At this unhappy juncture, she who some years 
ago took us for ^^ better or for worse" came to the 
rescue, finding us in the latter condition. She 
advanced to the field with a wash-basin full of 
water, off'ering that as sole inducement, and gave 
one call, when the horse went out to meet her, 
and under a hand, not half as strong as ours, 
gripping the mane, the refractory beast*was led 
to the manger. 

Standing with our feet in the damp grass and 
our new clothes wet to a sop, we learned then and 
there how much depends on the way you do a 
thing. The proposition we made to the bay mare 
was far better than that ofi'ered by our compan- 
ion ; but ours failed and hers succeeded. Not the 
first nor the last time that a wash-basin has 
beaten a pail. So some of us go all through life 
clumsily coaxing and awkwardly pursuing things 
which we want to halter and control. We strain 
every nerve, only to find ourselves befooled and 
left far behind, while some Christian man or 
woman comes into the field, and by easy art cap- 
tures that which evaded us. 

We heard a good sermon that day, but it was 
no more impressive than the besweated lesson of 
the pasture-field, which taught us that no more 
depends upon the thing you do than upon the 
way you do it. The difi'erence between the clean 
swath of that harvester in front of our house and 
the ragged work of his neighbor is in the way 
be swings the scythe, and not in the scythe itseii. 
There are ten men with one talent apiece who do 
more good than the one man with ten talents. 
A basin properly lifted may accomplish more than 
a pail unskillfully swung. A minister for an hour 
in his sermon attempts to chase down those brut- 



Catching the Bay Mare, 201 

ish in their habits, attempting to fetch them 
under the harness of Christian restraint, and per- 
haps miserably fails, when some gentle hand of 
sisterly or motherly affection laid upon the way- 
ward one brings him safely in. 

There is a knack in doing things. If all those 
Avho plough in State and Church had known how to 
hold the handles, and turn a straight furrow, and 
stop the team at the end of the held, the world 
would long ago have been ploughed into an Eden. 
What many people want is gumption — a word as 
yet undefined ; but if you do not know what it 
means, it is very certain you do not possess the 
quality it describes. We all need to study Chris- 
tian tact. The boys in the Baskinridge school- 
house laughed at William L. Dayton's impediment 
of speech, but that did not hinder him from 
afterward making court-room and senate-chamber 
thrill under the spell of his words. 

In our early home there was a vicious cat that 
would invade the milk-pans, and we, the boys, 
chased her with hoes and rakes, always hitting 
the place where she had been just before, till one 
day father came out with a plain stick of oven- 
wood, and with one little clip back of the ear put 
an end to all of her nine lives. You see every- 
thing depends upon the style of the stroke, and 
not upon the elaborateness of the weapon. The 
most valuable things you try to take will behave 
like the bay mare ; but what you cannot overcome 
by coarse persuasion, or reach at full run, you 
can catch with apostolic guile. Learn the first- 
rate art of doing secular or Christian work, and 
then it matters not whether your weapon be a 
basin or a pail. 



CHAPTER XLV. 
OUR FIEST AND LAST CIGAR. 

The time had come in our boyhood which we 
thought demanded of us a capacity to smoke. 
The old people of the household *^ could abide 
neither the sight nor the smell of the Virginia 
weed. When ministers came there, not by posi- 
tive injunction but by a sort of instinct as to 
what Avould be safest, they whiffed their pipe on 
the back steps. If the house could not stand 
sanctified smoke, you may know how little chance 
there was for adolescent cigar-puflSng. 

By some rare good fortune which put in our 
hands three cents, we found access to a tobacco 
store. As the lid of the long, narrow, fragrant 
box opened, and for the first time we own a cigar, 
our feelings of elation, manliness, superiority 
^nd anticipation can scarcely be imagined, save 
by those who have had the same sensation. Our 
first ride on horseback, though we fell off before 
\ve got to the barn, and our first pair of new 
boots (real squeakers) we had thought could 
never be surpassed in interest ; but when we put 
the cigar to our lips, and stuck the lucifer match 
to the end of the weed, and commenced to pull 
with an energy that brought every facial muscle 
to its utmost tension, our satisfaction with this 
world was so great, our temptation was never to 
want to leave it. 

The cigar did not burn well. It required an 
amount of suction that tasked our determination 
to the utmost. You see that our worldly mean.s 
had limited us to a quality that cost only thn^e 
cents. But we had been taught that nothing great 

202 



Oiw First and La^^i Cigar' 203 

was accomplished without eff'ort, and so we puffed 
away. Indeed, we had heard our older brothers 
in their Latin lessons say, Omnia vincet labor ; 
which translated means, If you want to make 
anything go, you must scratch for it. 

With these sentiments we passed down the vil- 
lage street and out toward our country home. Our 
head did not feel exactly right, and the street 
began to rock from side to side, so that it was 
uncertain to us which side of the street we were 
on. vSo we crossed over, but found ourself on 
the same side that we were on before we crossed 
over. Indeed, we imagined that we were on both 
sides at the same time, and several fast teams 
driving between. We met another boy, who 
asked us why we looked so pale, and we told him 
we did not look pale, but that he was pale himself. 

We sat down under the bridge and began to re- 
flect on the prospect of early decease, aiid on the 
uncertainty of all earthly expectations. We had 
determined to smoke the cigar all up and thus get 
the worth of our money, but were obliged to 
throw three-fourths of it away, yet knew just 
where we threw it, in case we felt better the next 
day. 

Getting home, the old people were frightened, 
and demanded that we state what kept us so late 
and what was the matter with us. Not feeling 
that we were called to go into particulars, and 
not wishing to increase our parents' apprehension 
that we were going to turn out badly, we summed 
up the case with the statement that we felt mis- 
erable at the pit of the stomach. We had mus- 
tard plasters administered, and careful watching 
for some hours, when we fell asleep and forgot 
our disappointment and humiliation in being 
obliged to throw away three-fourths of our first 
cigar. Being naturally reticent, we have never 
mentioned it until this time. 



204 Around the Tea-table, 

But how about our last cigar? It was three 
o'clock Sabbath morning in our Western home. 
We had smoked three or four cigars since tea. At 
that time we wrote our sermons and took another 
cigar with each new head of discourse. We 
thought we were getting the inspiration from 
above, but were getting much of it from beneath. 
Our hand trembled along the line ; and strung up 
to the last tension of nerves, we finished our work 
and started from the room. A book standing on 
the table fell over ; and although it was not a large 
book, its fall sounded to our excited system like 
the crack of a pistol. As we went down the stairs 
their creaking made our hair stand on end. As 
we flung ourselves on a sleepless pillow we re- 
solved, God helping, that we had smoked our last 
cigar, and committed our last sin of night-study. 

We kept our promise. With the same resolu- 
tion went overboard coffee and tea. That night 
we were born into a new physical, mental and 
moral life. Perhaps it may be better for some to 
smoke, and study nights, and take exciting tem- 
perance beverages ; but we are persuaded that if 
thousands of people who now go moping, and 
nervous, and half exhausted through life, down 
with '*sick headaches" and rasped by irritabil- 
ities, would try a good large dose of abstinence, 
they would thank God for this paragraph of per- 
sonal experience, and make the world the same 
bright place we find it — a place so attractive that 
nothing short of heaven would be good enough 
to exchange for it. 

The first cigar made us desperately sick ; the 
throwing away of our last made us gloriously 
well. For us the croaking of the midnight owl 
hath ceased, and the time of the singing of birds 
has come. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 
MOVE, MOVING, MOVED. 

The first of May is to many the beginning of 
the year. From that are dated the breakages, 
the social startings, the ups and downs, of do- 
mestic life. One-half New York is moving into 
smaller houses, the other half into larger. The 
past year's success or failure decides which way 
the horses of the furniture- wagon shall turn their 
heads. 

Days before, the work of packing commenced, 
it is astonishing how many boxes and barrels are 
required to contain all your wares. You come 
upon a thousand things that you had forgotten, 
too good to throw^ aw^ay and too poor to keep : old 
faded carpet-bags that would rouse the mirth of 
the town if you dared to carry them into the 
street; straws hats out of the fashion; beavers that 
you ought to have given aw^ay while they might 
iiave been useful ; odd gloves, shoes, coats and 
slips of carpet that have been the nest of rats, 
and a thousand things that you laid away because 
you some day might want them, but never will. 

For the last few days in the old house the ac- 
commodations approach the intolerable. Every- 
thing is packed up. The dinner comes to you on 
shattered crockery which is about to be thrown 
away, and the knives are only painful reminis- 
cences of what the}^ once were. The teapot that 
we used before we got our ''new set" comes on 
time to remind us how common we once were. 
You can, upset the coffee without soiling the 
tablecloth, for there is none. The salt and sugar 
come to you in cups looking so much alike that 

205 



2o6 Around the Tea-table. 

you find out for the first time how coffee tastes 
when saltedj or fish when it is sweetened. There 
is no place to sit down, and you have no time 
to do so if you found one. Tiie bedsteads are 
down, and you roll into the corner at night, a 
self -elected pauper, and all the night long have a 
quarrel with your pillow, which persists in get- 
ting out of bed, and your foot wanders out into 
the air, feeling for greater length of cover. If 
the children cry in the night, you will not find 
the matches nor the lamp nor anything else save 
a trunk just in time to fall over it, getting up 
with confused notions as to which is the way to 
bed, unless there be some friendly voice to hail 
you through the darkness. 

The first of May dawns. The carts come. It 
threatens rain, but not a drop until you get your 
best rosewood chairs out of doors, and your bed- 
ding on the top of the wagon. Be out at twelve 
o'clock you must, for another famil}^ are on your 
heels, and Thermopylae was a very tame pass 
compared with the excitement which rises when 
two families meet in the same hall — these moving 
out and those moving in. They swear, unless 
they have positive principles to prohibit. A 
mere theory on the subject of swearing will be no 
hindrance. Long-established propriety of speech, 
buttressed up by the most stalwart determination 
is the only safety. Men who talk right all the 
rest of the year sometimes let slip on the first of 
May. We know a member of the church who 
uses no violence of speech except on moving day, 
and then he frequently cries out: ''By the great 
United States P' 

All day long the house is full of racket : ' ' Look 
out how you scratch that table ! ' ' ' ' There ! you 
have dropped the leg out of that piano 1 ' ' ' 'There 
goes the looking-glass!" ''Ouch! you have 
smashed my finger!" "Didn't you see you were 



Move^ Moving, Moved. 207 

pushing me against the wall?' ^ ''Get out of our 
way! It's one o'clock, and your things are not 
half moved! Carmen! take hold and tumble 
these things into the street!" Our carmen and 
theirs get into a fight. Our servants on our side, 
their servants on theirs. We, opposed to any- 
thing but peace, try to quiet the strife, yet, if 
they must go on, feel we would like to have our 
men triumph. Like England during our late 
war, we remain neutral, yet have our preferences 
as to which shall beat. Now dash comes the rain, 
and the water cools off the heat of the combatants. 
The carmen must drive fast, so as to get the 
things out of the wet, but slow, so as not to rub 
the furniture. 

As our last load starts we go in to take a fare- 
well look at the old place. In that parlor we 
have been gay with our friends many a time, and 
as we glance round the room we seem to see the 
great group of their faces. The best furniture w^e 
ever had in our parlor was a circle of well-wishers- 
Here is the bedroom vrhere we slept off the 
world's cares, and got up glad as the lark when 
the morning sky beckons it upward. Many a 
time this room has been full of sleep from door- 
sill to ceiling. We always did feel grandly after 
we had put an eight-hour nap between us and 
life's perplexities. We are accustomed to divide 
our time into two parts: the first to be devoted to 
hard, blistering, consuming work, and the rest to 
be given to the most jubilant fun ; and sleep 
comes under the last head. 

We step into the nursery for a last look. The 
crib is gone, and the doll babies and the block- 
houses, but the echoes have not yet stopped gal- 
loping; May's laugh, and Edith's glee, and 
Frank's shout, as he urged the hobby-horse to 
its utmost speed, both heels struck into the flanks, 
till out of his glass eye the horse seemed to say : 



2o8 Around the Tea-table. 

*^Do that again, and I will throw you to the 
other side of the trundle-bed!'' Farewell, old 
house ! It did not suit us exactly, but thank God 
for the good times we had in it ! 

Moving-day is almost gone. It is almost night. 
Tumble everything into the new house. Put up 
the bedsteads. But who has the wrench, and 
who the screws? Packed up, are they? In what 
box? It may be any one of the half dozen. Ah ! 
now I know in which box you will find it; in 
the last one you open ! Hungry, are you? No 
time to talk of food till the crockery is unpacked. 
True enough, here they come. That last jolt of 
the cart finished the teacups. The jolt before 
that fractured some of the plates, and Bridget 
now drops the rest of them. The Paradise of 
crockery-merchants is moving-day. I think, from 
the results which I see, that they must about the 
first of May^ spend most of their time in praying 
for success in business. 

Seated on the boxes, you take tea, and then 
down with the carpets. They must be stretched, 
and pieced, and pulled, and matched. The w^hoie 
family are on their knees at the work, and red 
in the face, and before the tacks are driven all 
the fingers have been hammered once and are 
taking a second bruising. Nothing is where you 
expected to find it. Where is the hammer? 
Where are the tacks? Where the hatchet? Where 
the screw-driver? Where the nails? Where the 
window-shades? Where is the slat to that old 
bedstead? Where are the rollers to that stand? 
The sweet-oil has been emptied into the black- 
berry-jam. The pickles and the plums have gone 
out together a-swimming. The lard and the butter 
have united as skillfully as though a grocer had 
mixed them. The children who thought it 
would be grand sport to move are satiated, and 
one-half the city of New York at the close of 



Move^ Moving, Moved. 209 

May-day go to bed worn out, sick and disgusted. 
It is a social earthquake that annually shakes the 
city. 

It may be that very soon some of our rich rela- 
tives will, at their demise, '^will" us each one a 
house, so that we shall be permanently fixed. 
We should be sorry to have them quit the world 
under any circumstances ; but if, determined to 
go anyhow, they should leave us a house, the 
void would not be so large, esjjecially if it were 
a house, well furnished and having all the mod- 
ern improvements. We would be thankful for any 
good advice they might leave us, but should more 
highly appreciate a house. 

May all the victims of moving-day find their new 
home attractive ! If they have gone into a smal- 
ler house, let them congratulate themselves at the 
thought that it takes less time to keep a small 
house clean than a big one. May they have 
plenty of Spaulding's glue with which to repair 
breakages ! May the carpets fit better than they 
expected, and the family that moved out have 
taken all their cockroaches and bedbugs with 
them ! 

And, better than all — and this time in sober 
earnest — by the time that moving-day comes 
again, may they have made enough money to buy 
a house from which they will never have to move 
until the House of many mansions be ready to 
receive them ! 



CHAPTER XLVII. 
ADVANTAGE OF SMALL LIBRARIES. 

We never see a valuable book without wanting 
it. The most of us have been struck through 
with a passion for books. Town, city and state 
libraries to us are an enchantment. We hear of 
a private library of ten thousand volumes, and 
think what a heaven the owner must be living in. 
But the probability is that the man who has five 
hundred volumes is better off than the man who 
has ^Ye thousand. The large private libraries in 
uniform editions, and unbroken sets, and Russia 
covers, are, for the most part, the idlers of the 
day; while the small libraries, with broken- 
backed books, and turned-down leaves, and lead- 
pencil scribbles in the margin, are doing the chief 
work for the world and the Church. 

For the most part, the owners of large collec- 
tions have their chief anxiety about the binding 
and the type. Take down the whole set of 
Walter Scott's novels, and find that only one of 
them has been read through. There are Motley's 
histories on that shelf; but get into conversation 
about the Prince of Orange, and see that Motley 
has not been read. I never was more hungry 
than once while walking in a Charleston mill 
amid whole harvests of rice. One handful of 
that grain . in a pudding would have been worth 
more to me than a thousand tierces uncooked. 
Great libraries are of but little value if unread, 
and amid great profusion of books the temptation 
is to read but little. If a man take up a book, and 
feel he will never have a chance to see it again, 
he says : "I must read it now^ or never, ' ' and 

2IO 



A dva n tage of Sm all L ib ra ries . 211 

before the day is past has devoured it. The 
owner of the large library says: "I haA^e it on 
my shelf, and any time can refer to it. " 

What we can have any time we never have. 
I found a group of men living at the foot of 
Whiteface Mountain who had never been to the 
top, w^hile I had come hundreds of miles to as- 
cend it. They could go any time so easily. It is 
often the case that those who have plain copies 
of history are better acquainted with the past 
than those who have most h'ghly adorned editions 
of Bancroft, Prescott, Josephus and Herodotus. 
It ought not so to be, you say. I cannot help that ; 
so it is. 

Books are sometimes too elegantly bound to be 
read. The gilt, the tinge, the ivor}^, the clasps, 
seem to say : ' ^ Hands oif ! " The thing that 
most surprised me in Thomas Carlyle's library 
w^as the fewmess of the books. They had all seen 
service. None of them had paraded in holiday 
dress. They w^ere worn and battered. He had 
flung them at the ages. 

More beautiful than any other adornments are 
the costly books of a princely library ; but let not 
the man of small library stand looking into the 
garnished alcoves wishing for these unused vol- 
umes. The workman who dines on roast beef 
and new Irish potatoes will be healthier and 
stronger than he w^ho begins with ^ 'mock-turtle, ' ' 
and goes up through the lane of a luxuriant table 
till he comes to almond-nuts. I put the man of 
one hundred books, mastered, against the man 
of one thousand books of which he has only a 
smattering. 

On lecturing routes I have sometimes been turned 
into costly private libraries to spend the day; and 
I reveled in the indexes, and scrutinized the lids, 
and set them back in as straight a row as w^hen 
I found them, yet learned little. But on my w^ay 



212 A?vund the Tea-table. 

home in the cars I took out of my satchel a book 
that had cost me only one dollar and a half ^ and 
afterward found that it had changed the course 
of my life and helped decide my eternal destiny. 

We get many letters from clergymen asking ad- 
vice about reading, and deploring their lack of 
books. I warrant they all have books enough to 
shake earth and heaven with, if the books were 
rightl}^ used. A man who owns a Bible has, to 
begin with, a library as long as from here to 
heaven. The dullest preachers I know of have 
splendid libraries. They own everything that 
has been written on a miracle, and yet when you 
hear them preach, if you did not get sound 
asleep, that would be a miracle. They have ail 
that Calvin and other learned men wrote about 
•election, and while you hear them you feel that 
you have been elected to be bored. They have 
been months and years turning over the heavy 
tomes on the divine attributes, trying to under- 
stand God, while some plain Christian, with a 
New Testament in his hand, goes into the next 
alley, and sees in the face of an invalid woman 
peace and light and comfort and joy which teach 
him in one hour what God is. 

There are two kinds of dullness — learned dull- 
Pxcss and ignorant dullness. We think the latter 
preferable, for it is apt to be more spicy. You 
cannot measure the length of a man's brain, nor 
the width of his heart, nor the extent of his use- 
fulness by the size of his library. 

Life is so short you cannot know everything. 
There are but few things we need to know, but 
let us know them well. People who know every- 
thing do nothing. You cannot read all that 
comes out. Every book read without digestion 
is so much dyspepsia. Sixteen apple- dumplings 
at one meal are not healthy. 

In our age, when hundreds of books are launched 



Advantage of Small Libraries. 2 1 3 

every day from the press, do not be ashamed to 
confess ignorance of the majority of tJie volumes 
printed. If you have no artistic appreciation, 
spend neither your dollars nor your time on John 
Ruskin. Do not say that you are fond of Shake- 
speare if you are not interested in him, and after 
a year's study would not know Eomeo from John 
Fal staff. There is an amazing amount of lying- 
^bout Shakespeare. 

Use to the utmost what books you have, and da 
not waste your time in longing after a great li- 
brary. You wish you could live in the city and 
have access to some great collection of books. Be 
not deceived. The book of the library which you 
want will be out the day you want it. I longed 
to live in town that I might be in proximity to 
great libraries. Have lived in town thirteen 
years, and never found in the public library the 
book I asked for but once ; and getting that home, 
I discovered it was not the one I wanted. Be- 
sides, it is the book that you own that most 
profits, not that one which you take from ''The 
AtheucTeum" for a few days. 

Excepting in rare cases, you might as well send 
to the foundling hospital and borrow a baby as to- 
borrow a book with the idea of its being any 
great satisfaction. We like a baby in our cradle, 
but prefer that one which belongs to the house- 
hold. We like a book, but want to feel it is ours. 
We never yet got any advantage from a borrowed 
book. We hope those never reaped any profit 
from the books they borrowed from us, but never- 
returned. We must have the right to turn down 
the leaf, and underscore the favorite passage, and 
write an observation in the margin in such poor 
chirograph y that no one else can read it and we 
ourselves are sometimes confounded. 

All success to great libraries, and skillful book- 
bindery, and exquisite tvpography, and fine-tinted 



214 Around the Tea-table, 

plate paper, and beveled boards, and gilt edges, 
and Turkey morocco ! but we are determined that 
frescoed alcoves shall not lord it over common 
shelves, and Eussia binding shall not overrule 
sheepskin, and that * 'full calf ' shall not look 
down on pasteboard. We war not against great 
libraries. We only plead for the better use of 
small ones. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 
REFORMATION IN LETTER- WRITING. 

We congratulate the country on the revolution 
in epistolary correspondence. Through postal 
cards we not only come to economy in stamps, 
and paper, and ink, and envelopes, but to edu- 
cation in brevity. As soon as men and women 
get facility in composition they are tempted to 
prolixity. Hence some of us formed the habit 
of beginning to read a letter on the second page, 
because we knew that the writer would not get 
a-going before that ; and then we were apt to stop 
a page or two before the close, knowing that the 
remaining portions would be taken in jDutting 
down the brakes. 

The postal card is a national deliverance. 
Without the conventional "I take my pen in 
hand, " or other rigmarole — which being trans- 
lated means, ^'I am not quite ready to begin just 
now, but will very soon" — the writer states di- 
rectly, and in ten or twenty words, all his business. 

While no one can possibly have keener appre- 
ciation than we of letters of sympathy, encour- 
agement and good cheer, there is a vast amount 
of letter- writing that amounts to nothing. Some 
of them we carry in our pockets, and read over 
and over again,'^ until they are worn out with 
handling. But we average about twenty begging 
letters a day. They are always long, the first page 
taken up in congratulations upon "big heart," 
' ' wide influence, " " Christian sympathies, ' ' and 
so on, winding up with a solicitation for five 
dollars, more or less. We always know from the 
amount of lather put on that we are going to l)e 

215 



2i6 Around the Tea-table, 

shaved. The postal card will soon invade even that 
verbosity, and the correspondent will simply say, 
^'Poor — very — children ten — chills and fever my- 
self — no quinine — desperate — your money or your 
life-Bartholomew Wiggins, Dismal Swamp, la. ' ^ 

The advantage of such a thing is that if you do 
not answer such a letter no offence is taken, it is 
so short and costs only a cent ; whereas, if the 
author had taken a great sheet of letter paper, 
filled it with compliments and graceful solicita- 
tions, folded it, and run the gummed edge along: 
the lips at the risk of being poisoned, and stuck 
on a stamp (after tedious examination of it to see 
whether or not it had been used before, or had 
only been mauled in your vest pocket), the 
offence would have been mortal, and you would 
have been pronounced mean and unfit for the 
ministry. 

Postal cards are likewise a relief to that large 
class of persons who by sealed envelope are roused 
to inquisitiveness. As such a closed letter lies on 
the mantel-piece unopened, they wonder whom it 
is from, and what is in it, and they hold it up 
between them and the light to see w^hat are the 
indications, and stand close by and look over your 
shoulder while you read it, and decipher from 
your looks whether it is a love-letter or a dun. 
The postal card is immediate relief to them, for 
they can read for themselves, and can pick up 
information on various subjects free of charge. 

But, after all, the great advantage of this new 
postal arrangement is economy in the consump- 
tion of time. It will practically add several years 
to a man's life, and will keep us a thousand 
times, at the beginning of our letters, from say- 
ing **Dear Sir'' to those who are not at all dear, 
and will save us from surrendering ourselves with 
a ^ 'Yours, truly, ' ' to those to whom we will never 
belong. We hail the advent of the postal-card 
system. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 
ROYAL MARRIAGES. 

There has lately been such a jingle of bells in 
St. Petersburg and London that we have heard 
them quite across the sea. The queen's son has 
married, the daughter of the Russian emperor. 
We are glad of it. It is always well to have peo- 
ple marry who are on the same level. The fa- 
mous affiancing in New York of a coachman with 
the daughter of the millionaire who employed 
him did not turn out well. It was bad for her, 
but worse for the coachman. Eagle and ox are 
both well in their places, but let them not marry. 
The ox would be dizzy in the eyrie, and the 
eagle ill at home in the barnyarcl. When the 
children of two royal homes are united, there 
ought be no begrudging of powder for the can- 
nonading, or of candles for the illumination. 
All joy to the Duke of Edinburgh and his fortu- 
nate duchess. 

But let not our friends across the sea imagine 
that we ha.ve no royal marriages here in this 
western wilderness. Whenever two hearts come 
together pledged to make each other happy, bind- 
ing all their hopes and fears and anticipations in 
one sheaf, calling on God to bless and angels to 
witness, though no organ may sound the wedding- 
march, and no bells may chime, and no Dean of 
Westminster travel a thousand miles to pronounce 
the ceremony, — that is a royal marriage. 

When two young people start out on life 
together with nothing but a determination to 
succeed, avoiding the invasion of each other's 
idiosyncrasies, not carrying the candle near the 
gunpowder, sympathetic with each other's em- 

217 



21 8 Around the Tea-table. 

ployment, willing to live on small means till they 
get large facilities, paying as they go, taking life 
here as a discipline, with four eyes watching its 
perils, and with four hands fighting its battles, 
whatever others may say or do, — that is a royal 
marriage. It is so set down in the heavenly ar- 
chives, and the orange blossoms shall wither on 
neither side the grave. 

We deplore the fact that because of the fearful 
extravagances of modern society many of our best 
people conclude that they cannot possibly afi'ord 
to marry. 

We are getting a fearful crop of old bachelors. 
They swarm around us. They go through life lop- 
sided. Half dressed, they sit round cold morn- 
ings, all a-shiver, sewing on buttons and darning 
socks, and then go down to a long boarding-house 
table which is bounded on the north and south 
and east and west by the Great Sahara Desert. 
We do not pity them at all. May all their but- 
tons be off to-morrow morning! Why do they 
not set up a plain home of their own and come 
into the ark two and two? 

The supporting of a wife is looked upon as a 
great horror. Why, dear friends, with right and 
healthy notions of time and eternity it is very 
easy to support a wife if she be of the kind 
worth supporting. If she be educated into false 
notions of refinement and have ^^ young ladies' 
institutes" piled on her head till she be imbecile, 
you will never be able to support her. Every- 
thing depends on whether you take for your wife 
a woman or a doll-baby. Our opinion is that 
three-fourths the successful men of the day owe 
much of their prosperity to the wife's help. 
The load of life is so heavy it takes a team of 
two to draw it. The ship wants not only a cap- 
tain, but a first mate. Society to-day, trans- 
Atlantic and cis-Atlantic, very much needs more 
royal marriages. 



CHAPTER L. 
THREE VISITS. 

Yesterday was Saturday to you, but it was Sun- 
day to me.' In other words, it was a day of rest. 
We cannot always be working. If you drive along 
in a deep rut, and then try to turn off, you are 
very apt to break the shafts. A skillful driver is 
careful not to get into a deep rut. You cannot 
always be keeping on in the same way. We must 
have times of leisure and recreation. 

A great deal of Christian work amounts to noth- 
ing, from the fact that it is not prefaced and 
append ixed by recreation. Better take hold of a 
hammer and give one strong stroke and lay it 
down than to be all the time so fagged out that 
we cannot move the hammer. 

Well, yesterday being a day of rest to me, I 
made three visits in New York. 

The first was to the Tombs — an institution 
seemingly full now, a man or w^oman or boy at 
every wicket. A great congregation of burglars, 
thieves, pickpockets and murderers. For the 
most part, they are the clumsy villains of society ; 
the nimble, spry ones get out of the way, and are 
not caught. There are those who are agile as 
well as depraved in that dark place. Stokes, rep- 
resenting the aristocracy of crime; Foster, the 
democracy of sin; and Rozensweig, the brute. 
Each cell a commentary upon the Scripture 
passage, ''The way of the transgressor is 
hard." 

I was amazed to see that the youth are in the 
majority in that building. I said to the turnkey : 
* ' What a pity it is that that bright fellow is 'in 

219 



220 Around the Tea-table, 

here!" ^^Oh, " he says, ^Uhese bright fellows 
keep us busy. ' ' I talked some with the boys, 
and they laughed ; but there was a catch in the 
guffaw, as though the laughter on its way had 
stumbled over a groan. It w^as not a deep laugh 
and a laugh all over, as boys generally do when 
they are merry. These boys have had no chance. 
They have been in the school of crime all their 
days, and are now only taking their degree of 
* ^ M. Y. ' ' — master of villainy. 

God hasten the time when our Sabbath-schools, 
instead of being iiower-pots for a few choice 
children, shall gather up the perishing rabble 
outside, like Ralph Wells' school in New York, 
and Father Hawiey's school in Hartford, and 
John Wanamaker's school in Philadelphia ! There 
is not much chance in our fashionable Sunday- 
schools for a boy out at the elbows. Many of 
our schools pride themselves on being gilt-edged; 
and when we go out to fulfill the Saviour's com- 
mand, *^ Feed my lambs, " we look out chiefly 
for white fleeces. I like that school the best 
which, in addition to the glorious gospel, carries 
soap and fine-tooth combs. God save the dying 
children of the street! I saw a child in the 
Tombs four years of age, and said, "What in the 
world can this little child be doing here?" They 
told me the father had been arrested and the 
child had to go with him. Allegory, parable, 
prophecy: ''Where the father goes the child 
goes. ' ' Father inside the grates, and son outside 
waiting to get in. 

All through the corridors of that prison I saw 
Scripture passages: ''I am the way of life;" 
"Believe in the Lord, and thou shall be saved;" 
and like passages. Who placed them there? 
The turnkey? No. The sheriff? No. They are 
marks left by the city m.issionary and Christian 
philanthropist in recognition of that gospel by 



Three Visits, 221 

which the world is to be regenerated or never 
saved at all. 

I wish they would get some other name for 
that — the Tombs — for it is the cleanest prison I 
ever saw. But the great want of that prison and 
of all others is sunshine. God's light is a puri- 
fier. You cannot expect reformation where you 
brood over a man with perpetual midnight. Oh 
that some Howard or Elizabeth Fry would cry 
through all the dungeons of the earth, ^ ' Let there 
be light!" I never heard of anybody being 
brought to God or reformed through darkness. 
God "Himself is light, and that which is most like 
God is most healthful and pure. 

Saddened by this awful wreck of men and 
morals, we came along the corridors where the 
wives stood weeping at the wicket-door of theii 
husbands, and parents over their lost children. 
It was a very sad place. There were some men I 
was surprised to find there — men whom I had 
seen in other places, in holy places, in conse- 
crated places. 

We came out into the sunlight after that, and 
found ourselves very soon in the art-gallery at 
Twenty-third street. That was my second visit. 
Mr. Kensett, the great artist, recently died, and 
six hundred and fifty of his pictures are now on 
exhibition. In contrast v>dth the dark prison 
scene, how beautiful the canvas! Mr. Kensett 
had an irresistible way of calling trees and rocks 
and waters into his pictures. He only beckoned 
and they came. Once come, he pinioned them 
for ever. Why, that man could paint a breeze 
on the water, so it almost wet your face with the 
spray. So restful are his pictures you feel after 
seeing them as though for half a day you had 
been sprawled under a tree in July weather, sum- 
mered through and through. 

Thirty of such pictures he painted each year in 



222 Around the Tea-table, 

one hundred and twenty days, and then died — 
quickly and unwarned, dropping his magician's 
wand, to be picked up never. I wondered if he 
was ready, and if the God whom he had often 
met amid the moss on the sea-cliffs and in the 
offing was the God who pardoned sin and by His 
grace saves painter and boor. The Lord bless the 
unappreciated artists; they do a glorious work for 
God and the world, but for the most part live in 
penury, and the brightest color on their palette 
is crimson with their own blood. 

May the time hasten when the Frenchmen who 
put on canvas their Cupids poorly clad, and the 
Germans who hang up homely Dutch babies in 
the arms of the Virgin Mary and call them Ma- 
donnas, shall be overruled by the artists who, 
like Kensett, make their canvas a psalm of praise 
to the Lord of the winds and the waters ! 

I stepped across the way into the Young Men's 
Christian Association of New York, with its 
reading-rooms and library and gymnasium and 
bath-rooms, all means of grace — a place that pro- 
poses to charm young men from places of sin by 
making religion attractive. It is a palace for the 
Lord — the pride of New Y^ork, or ought to be ; I 
do not believe it really is, but it ought to be. It 
is fifty churches with its arms of Christian use- 
fulness stretched out toward the young men. 

If a young man come in mentally worn out, 
it gives him dumb-bells, parallel bars and a bowl- 
ing-alley with no rum at either end of it. If 
physically worsted, it rests him amid pictures 
and books and newspapers. If a young man come 
in wanting something for the soul, there are the 
Bible-classes, prayer-meetings and preaching of 
the gospel. 

Religion wears no monk's cowl in that place, 
no hair shirt, no spiked sandals, but the floor and 
the ceilino: and the loun2:es and the tables and the 



Three Visits. 223 

cheerful attendants seem to say : ' * Her ways are 
ways of pleasantness, and ail her paths are peace. ' ' 

I never saw a more beautiful scene in any pub- 
lic building than on one of these bright sofas, fit 
for any parlor in New York, where lay a w^eary, 
plain, exhausted man resting — sound asleep. 

Another triumph of Christianity that building 
is — a Christianity that is erecting lighthouses on 
all the coasts, and planting its batteries on every 
hill-top, and spreading its banquets all the w^orld 
over. 

Well, with these reflections I started for Brook- 
lyn. It was just after six o'clock, and tired New 
York was going home. Street cars and ferries 
all crowded. Going home ! Some to bright places, 
to be lovingly greeted and warmed and fed and 
rested. Others to places dark and uncomely ; but 
as I sat down in my own home I could not 
help thinking of the three spectacles. I had seen 
during the day Sin, in its shame; Art, in its 
beauty ; Religion, in its work of love. God give 
repentance to the first, wider appreciation to the 
second, and universal conquest to the third ! 



chapte;r u. 

■ MANAHACHTANIENKS. ■ 

We should like to tell so many of our readers 
as have survived the pronunciation of the above 
word that the Indians first called the site on 
which New York was built Manahachtanienks. 
The translation of it is, *'The place where they 
ail got drunk." Most uncomplimentary title; 
we are glad that it has been changed ; for though 
New York has several thousand unlicensed grog- 
shops, we consider the name inappropriate, al- 
though, if intemperance continues to increase as 
rapidly for the next hundred years as during the 
last twenty years, the time wall come when New 
York may appropriately take its old Indian no- 
menclature. 

Old-time New York is being rapidly forgotten, 
and it may be well to revive some historical facts. 
At an expense of three thousand dollars a year 
men with guide-book in hand go through the 
pyramids of Egypt and the picture-galleries of 
Rome and the ruins of Pompeii, when they have 
never seen the strange and historical scenes at 
home. 

We advise the people who live in Brooklyn, 
Jersey City and up-town New Y^'ork to go on an 
exploration. 

Go to No. 1 Broadway and remember that 
George Washington and Lord Cornwall is once 
lived there. 

Go to the United States Treasury, on Wall 
street, and remember that in front of it used to 
stand a pillory and a whipping-post. 

In a building that stood where tlie United States 

224 . 



Ma naJi a ch ta n le nks. 225 

Treasury stands, General Washington was installed 
as President. In the open balcony he stood with 
silver buckles and powdered hair, in dress of dark 
silk velvet. (People in those days dressed more 
than w^e moderns. Think of James Buchanan or 
General Grant inaugurated with hair and shoes 
fixed up like that!) 

Go to the corner of Pearl and Broad streets, and 
remember that was the scene of Washington's 
farewell to the officers with whom he had been 
so long associated. 

Go to Canal street, and remember it was so 
called because it once v/as literally a canal. 

The electric telegraph was born in the steeple 
of the old Dutch Church, now the New York post- 
office — that is, Benjamin Franklin made there 
his first experiments in electricity. When the 
other denominations charge the Dutch Church 
with being slow^, they do not know that the 
world got its lightning out of one of its church 
siteex^les. 

Washington Irving was born in William street, 
halfway between John and Fulton. '^ Knicker- 
bocker" was considered very saucy; but if any 
man ever had a right to say mirthful things about 
New York, it was Washington Irving, who was 
born tiiere. At the corner of Varick and Charl- 
ton streets w^as a house in which Washington, 
John Adams and Aaron Burr resided. 

George Wliitefield preached at the corner of 
Beekman and Nassau streets. 

But w^hy particularize, vrhen there is not a block 
or a house on the great thoroughfare which has 
not been the scene of a tragedy, a fortune ruined, 
a reputation sacrificed, an agony sufi'ered or a 
soul lost? 



CHAPTER LII. 

A DIP IN THE SEA. 

Shakespeare has been fiercely mauled by the 
critics for confusion of metaphor in speaking of 
taking up ''arms against a sea of troubles. " The 
smart fellows say, How could a man take ' ' arms 
against a sea?" In other words, it is not possi- 
ble to shoot the Pacific Ocean. But what Shake- 
speare suggests is, this jocund morning, being 
done all around the coast from Florida to New- 
foundland, especial regiments going out from Cape 
May, Long Branch, East Hampton, Newport and 
Nahant ; ten thousand bathers, with hands thrown 
into the air, "taking up arms against the sea. " 
Bat the old giant has only to roll over once on 
his bed of seaweed, and all this attacking host 
are flung prostrate upon the beach. 

The sensation of sea-bathing is about the same 
everywhere. First you have the work of putting 
on the appropriate dress, sometimes wet and chill 
from the previous bathing. You get into the 
garments cautiously, touching them at as few 
points as possible, your face askew, and with a 
swift draft of breath through your front teeth, 
punctuating the final lodgment of each sleeve and 
fold with a spasmodic ''Oh!" Then, having 
placed your watch where no villainous straggler 
may be induced to examine it to see whether he 
can get to the depot in time for the next train, 
you issue forth ingloriously, your head down in 
consciousness that you are cutting a sorry figure 
before the world. Barefoot as a mendicant, your 
hair disheveled in the wind, the stripes of your 
clothes strongly suggestive of Sing Sing, your 

226 



A Dip in the Sea. 227 

appearance a caricature of humankind, you wan- 
der up and down the beach a creature that the 
land is evidently trying to shake off and the sea 
is unwilling to take. But you are consoled by 
the fact that all the rest are as mean and forlorn- 
looking as yourself; and so you waade in, over 
foot- top, unto the knee, and waist deep. The 
water is icy-cold, so that your teeth chatter and 
your frame quakes, until 5^ou make a bold dive; 
and in a moment you and the sea are good friends, 
and you are not certain whether you have sur- 
rendered to the ocean or the ocean has surren- 
dered to you. 

At this point begin the raptures of bathing. 
You have left the world on the beach, and are 
caught up in the arms of experiences that you 
never feel on land. If you are far enough out, 
the breaking wave curves over you like a roof 
inlaid and prismatic, bending down on the other 
side of you in layers of chalk and drifts of 
snow, and the lightning flash of the foam ends 
in the thunder of the falling wave. You fling 
aside from your arms, as worthless, amethyst and 
emerald and chrysoprase. Your ears are filled 
with the halo of sporting elements, and your 
eyes with all tints and tinges and double-dye& 
and liquid emblazonment. You leap and shout 
and clap your hands, and tell the billows to come 
on, and in excess of glee greet persons that you 
never saw before and never will again, and never 
w^ant to, and act so wildly that others would 
think you demented but that they also are as 
fully let loose; so that if there be one imbecile 
there is a w^hole asylum of lunatics. 

It is astonishing how many sounds mingle in 
the water : the faint squall of the afl'righted child, 
the shrill shriek of the lady just introduced to 
the uproarious hilarities, the souse of the diver, 
the snort of the half-strangled, the clear giggle of 



228 Around the Tea-table. 

maidens, the hoarse bellow of swamped obesity, 
the whine of the convalescent invalid, the yell of 
unmixed delight, the te-liee and squeak of the 
city exquisite learning how to laugh out loud, 
the splash of the brine, the cachinnation of a 
band of harmless savages, the stun of the surge 
on your right ear, the hiss of the surf, the satur- 
nalia of the elements ; while overpowering all 
other sounds are the orchestral harmonies of the 
sea, which roll on through the ages, all shells, 
all winds, all caverns, all billows heard in 'Hhe 
oratorio of the creation." 

But while bathing, the ludicrous will often 
break through the grand. Swept hither and 
thither, you find, moving in reel and cotillon, 
saraband and rigadoon and hornpipe, Quakers 
.and Presbyterians who are down on the dance. 
Your sparse clothing feels the stress of the waves, 
and you think what an awful thing it would be 
if the girdle should burst or a button break, and 
you should have, out of respect to the feelings 
of others, to go up the beach sidewise or back- 
w^ard or on your hands and knees. 

Close beside you, in the surf, is a judge of the 
Court of Appeals, with a garment on that looks 
like his grandmother's night-gown just lifted 
from the wash-tub and not yet wrung out. On 
the other side is a maiden with a twenty-five- 
cent straw hat on a head that ordinarily sports a 
hundred dollars' worth of millinery. Yonder 
is a doctor of divinity with his head in the sand 
and his feet beating the air, traveling heavenward, 
while his right hand clutches his wife's foot, as 
much as to say, ^'My feet are useless in this 
emergency ; give me the benefit of yours. ' ' 

Now a stronger wave, for which none are ready, 
dashes in, and with it tumble ashore, in one 
great wreck of humanity, small craft and large, 
stout hulk and swift clipper, helm first, topsail 



A Dip in the Sea. 229 

down, forestay-sail in tatters, keel up, everything 
gone to pieces in the swash of the surges. 

Oh, the glee of sea-bathing! It rouses the ap- 
athetic. It upsets the supercilious and pragmati- 
cal. It is balsamic for mental wounds. It is a 
tonic for those w^ho need strength, and an ano- 
dyne for those who require soothing, and a febri- 
fuge for those who want their blood cooled ; a 
filling up for minds pumped dry, a breviary for 
tlie superstitious with endless matins and vespers, 
and to the Christian an apocalyptic vision where 
the morning sun gilds the waters, and there is 
spread before him **a sea of glass mingled with 
fire." *'Thy way, God, is in the sea, and thy 
path in the great waters!" 



CHAPTER LIII. 
HAKD SHELL CONSIDERATIONS. 

The plumage of the robin redbreast, the mottled 
sides of the Saranac trout, the upholstery of a 
spider's web, the waist of the w^asp fashionably 
small without tight, lacing, the lustrous eye of 
the gazelle, the ganglia of the star-fish, have 
been discoursed upon ; but it is left to us, fagged 
out from a long ramble, to sit down on a log and 
celebrate the admirable qualities of a turtle. 
We refer not to the curious architecture of its 
house — ribbed, plated, jointed, carapace and plas- 
tron divinely fashioned — but to its instincts, 
worthy almost of being called mental and moral 
qualities. 

The tortoise is waser than many people we wot 
of, in the fact that he knows when to keep his 
head in his shell. No sooner did w^e just now 
appear on the edge of the wood than this animal 
of the order Testudinata modestly withdrew. He 
knew he was no match for us. But how many of 
the human race are in the habit of projecting 
their heads into things for which they have no 
fittedness ! They thrust themselves into discus- 
sions where they are almost sure to get trod on. 
They will dispute about vertebrae with Cuvier, 
or metaphysict3 with William Hamilton, or paint- 
ings with Ruskin, or medicine with Doctor Rush, 
and attempt to sting Professor Jaeger to death 
with his own insects. The first and last impor- 
tant lesson for such persons to learn is, like this 
animal at our foot, to shut up their shell. If they 
could see how, in the case of this roadside tor- 
toise, at our appearance the carapace suddenly 

230 



Hard Shell Coyisideraiions . 231 

came down on the plastron, or, in other worcLs, 
how the upper bone snapped against the lower 
bone, they might become as wise as this reptile. 

We admire also the turtle's capacity of being at 
home everywhere. He carries with him his par- 
lor, nursery, kitchen, bed-chamber and bath- 
room. Would that we all had an equal faculty of 
domestication I In such a beautiful w^orld, and 
with so many comfortable surroundings, we ought 
to feel at home in any place we are called to be. 
While we cannot, like the tortoise, carry our house 
on our back, we are better off than he, for by the 
right culture of a contented spirit we may make 
the sky itself the mottled shell of our residence, 
and the horizon all around us shall be the place 
w^here the carapace shuts down on the plastron. 

We admire still more the tortoise's determina- 
tion to right itself. By way of experiment, turn 
it upside down, and then go off a piece to see it 
regain its position. Now, there is nothing when 
put upon its back which has such little prospect 
of getting to its feet again as this animal. It 
has no hands to push with and nothing against 
wdiich to brace its feet, and one would think that 
a turtle once upside down would l.)e upside down 
for ever. But put on its back, it keeps on scrab- 
bling till it is right side up. We would like to 
pick up this animal from the dust and put it down 
on Broadway/, if men passing by would learn 
from it never to stop exertion, even when over- 
thrown. You cannot by commercial disasters be 
more thoroughly flat on your back than five min- 
utes ago was this poor thing; but see it yonder 
nimbly making for the bushes. Yanderbilt or Jay 
Gould may treat you as we did the tortoise a few 
moments ago. But do not lie still, discouraged. 
Make an effort to get up. Throw^ your feet out, 
first in one direction and then in another. 
Scrabble ! 



232 Around the Tea-table. 

We find from this day's roadside observation 
that the turtle uses its head before it does its 
feet : in other words, it looks around before it 
moves. You never catch a turtle doing anything 
without previous careful inspection. We would ^ 
all of us, do better if we always looked before we 
leaped. It is easier to get into trouble than to 
get out. Better have goods weighed before we 
buy them. Better know where a road comes out 
before we start on it. We caught one hundred 
iiies in our sitting-room yesterday because they 
sacrificed all their caution to a love of molasses. 
Better use your brain before you do your hands 
and feet. Before starting, the turtle always sticks 
its head out of its shell. 

But tortoises die. They sometimes last two 
hundred years. We read that one of them out- 
lived seven bishops. They have a quiet life and 
no wear and tear upon their nervous system. 
Yet they, after a while, notwithstanding all their 
slow travel, reach the end of their journey. For 
the last time they draw their head inside their 
shell and shut out the world for ever. But not- 
withstanding the useful thoughts they suggest 
while living, they are of still more worth when 
dead. We fashion their bodies into soup and 
their carapace into combs for the hair, and tinged 
drops for the ear, and bracelets for the wrist. 
One of Delmonico's soup tureens is waiting for 
the hero we celebrate, and Tiffany for his eight 
plates of bone. Will we be as useful after we are 
dead? Some men are thrown aside like a turtle- 
shell crushed by a cart-wheel ; but others, by 
deeds done or words spoken, are useful long after 
they quit life, their example an encouragement, 
their memory a banquet. He who helps build 
an asylum or gives healthful and cultured start- 
ing to a young man may twenty years after his 
decease be doing more for the world than during 



Hard Shell Cojisidcrations. 235 

his residence upon it. Stephen Girard and George 
Peabody are of more use to the race tiian when 
PhilaJelphia and London saw them. 

But we must get up olf this log, for the ants are 
crawling over us, and the bull-frogs croak as 
though the night were coming on. The evening 
star hangs its lantern at the door of the niglit to 
light the tired day to rest. The wild roses in 
the thicket are breathing vespers at an altar cush- 
ioned with moss, while the tire-flies are kindling 
their dim lamps in the cathedral of the woods. 
The evening dew on strings of fern is counting 
its beads in prayer. The "Whip-poor-will" 
takes up its notes of complaint, making us won- 
der on our way home what "Will" it was that 
in boyhood maltreated the ancestors of this spe- 
cies of birds, whether William Wordsworth, or 
William Cowper, or William Shakspeare, so that 
the feathered descendants keep through all the 
forests, year after year, demanding for the cruel 
perpetrator a sound threshing, forgetting the 
Bryant that praised them and the Tennyson that 
petted them and the Jean Ingelow who throws 
them crumbs, in their anxiety to have some one 
whip poor Will. 



CHAPTER I.IV. 

WISEMAN, HEAVYASBRICKS AND QUIZZLE. 

We had muffins that night. Indeed, we always 
had either muffins or waffles when Governor 
Wiseman was at tea. The reason for this choice 
of food was that a muffin or a waffle seemed just 
suited to the size of Wiseman's paragraphs of 
conversation. In other words, a muffin lasted him 
about as long as any one subject of discourse ; 
and when the muffin was done, the subject was 
done. 

We never knew why he was called governor, 
for he certainly never ruled over any State, but 
perhaps it was his wise look that got him the 
name. He never laughed; had his rourd spec- 
tacles far down on the end of his nose, sr that be 
could see as far into his plate as any 3 ian that 
ever sat at our tea-table. When he ta k(yl, the 
conversation was all on his side. He a ar idered 
himself oracular on most subjects. You lad but 
to ask him a question, and without lift! ig his 
head, his eye vibrating from fork to i mffin, 
he would go on till he had said all he knew on 
that theme. We did not invite him to our house 
more than once in about three months, for too 
much of a good thing is a bad thing. 

At the same sitting we always had our young 
friend Fred Q^izzle. He did not know much, 
but he was mighty in asking questions. So when 
we had Governor Wiseman, the well, we had 
Quizzle, the pump. 

Fred was long and thin and jerky, and you 
never knew just where he would put his foot. 
Indeed, he was not certain himself. He was 

234 



I 



Wiseman and Quizzle, 235 

thoroughly illogical, and the question he asked 
would sometimes seem quite foreign to the sub- 
ject being discoursed upon. His legs were 
crooked and reminded you of interrogation points, 
and his arms were interrogations, and his neck 
was an interrogation, while his eyes had a very 
inquisitive look. 

Fred Quizzle did not talk until over two years 
of age, notwithstanding all his parents' exertions 
toward getting him to say ' ' papa' ' and ' ' mamma. ' ' 
After his parents had made up their minds that 
he v/ould never talk at all^ he one day rose from 
his block houses, looked into his father's eyes, 
and cried out, "How?" as if inquiring in v/hat 
manner he had found his way into this world. 
His parent, outraged at the child's choice of an 
adverb for his first expression instead of a noun 
masculine or a noun feminine indicative of filial 
afiection, ]3roceeded to chastise the youngster, 
when Fred Quizzle cried out for his second, 
''Why?" as though inquiring the cause of such 
hasty punishment. 

This early propensity for asking questions grew 
on him till at twenty-three years of age he was a 
prodigy in this respect. So when we had Governor 
Wiseman we also had Fred Quizzle, the former to 
•discourse, the latter to start him and keep him 
going. 

Doctor Heavyasbricks was generally present at 
the same interview. We took the doctor as a sort 
of sedative. After a season of hard work and 
nervous excitement. Doctor Heawdsbricks had 
a quieting influence upon us. ^-'here was no 
lightning in his disposition. Fe v^^as a great 
laugher, but never at any recen' merriment. It 
took a long while for him to understand a joke. 
Indeed, if it were subtle or elaborate, he never 
understood it. But give the doctor, when in 
good health, a ])lain pun or rei^^rtee, and let liim 



236 Aroufid the Tea-table, 

have a day or two to think over it, and he would 
come in with uproarious merriment that well-nigh 
would choke him to death, if the paroxysm 
happened to take him with his mouth full of 
muffins. 

When at our table, the time not positively 
occupied in mastication he employed in looking 
first at Quizzle, the interlocutor, and then at 
Governor Wiseman, the responding oracle. 

Quizzle. — How have you, Governor Wiseman^ 
kept yourself in such robust health so long a 
time? 

Wiseman. — By never trifling with it, sir. I 
never eat muffins too hot. This one, you seCj 
has had some time to cool. Besides, when I am 
at all disordered, I immediately senS for the 
doctor. 

There are books proposing that we all become 
our own medical attendant. Whenever we are 
seized with any sort of physical disorder, we are 
to take down some volume in homeopathy, allo- 
pathy, hydropathy, and running our linger along 
the index, alight upon the malady that may be 
afflicting us. We shall find in the same page the 
name of the disease and the remedy. Thus: 
chapped hands — ^glycerine ; cold — squills ; lumibago 
— mustard -plasters ; nervous excitement — valer- 
ian ; sleeplessness — Dover's powders. 

This may be very well for slight ailments, but 
we have attended more funerals of people who 
were their own doctor than obsequies of any other 
sort. In your inexperience you will be apt to 
get the wrong remedy. Look out for the agricul- 
turist who farms by book, neglecting the counsel 
of his long-experienced neighbors. He will have 
poor turnips and starveling wheat, and kill his 
fields v/ith undue apportionments of guano and 
bonedust. Look out just as much for the patient 
who in the worship of some *'pathy'' blindly 



A^lseman and Qidzzle. 237 

adheres to a favorite hygienic vokime, rejecting 
in important cases medical admonition. 

In ordinary cases the best doctor you can have 
is mother or grandmother, who 'has piloted 
through the rocks of infantile disease a whole 
family. She has salve for almost everything, and 
knows how^ to bind a wound or cool an iniiamma- 
ticn. But if mother be dead or you are afflicted 
with a maternal ancestor that never knew any- 
thing practical, and never ill, better in severe 
cases have the doctor right away. You say that 
it is expensive to do that, while a book on the 
treatment of diseases will cost you only a dollar 
and a half. I reply that in the end it is very 
expensive for an inexperienced man to be his 
owai doctor; for in addition to the price of the 
book there are the undertaker's expenses. 

Some of the younger persons at the table 
laughed at the closing sentence of Wiseman, 
vrhen Doctor Heavyasbricks looked up, put down 
his knife and said: "My young friends, wdiat 
are you laughing at? I see no cause of merri- 
ment in the phrase 'undertaker's expenses.' It 
seems to me to be a sad business. When I think 
of the scenes amid which an undertaker moves, I 
feel more like tears than hilarity." 

Quizzle. — If you are opposed. Governor Wise- 
man, to one's being his own doctor, wdiat do you 
think of every man's being his own lawyer? 

W^iseman. — I think just as badly of that. 

Books setting forth forms for deeds, mortgages, 
notes, and contracts, are no doubt valuable. It 
should be a part of every young man's education 
to know something of these. We cannot for the 
small business transactions of life be hunting up 
\hQ "attorney-at-law^" or the village squire. But 
econom}^ in the transfer of property or in the 
making of wills is sometimes a permanent dis- 
aster. There are so many quirks in the law, so 



238 Aroiuid the Tea-table. 

many hiding-places for scamps, so manj/ niodes 
of twisting phraseoiog}^ so many decisions^ 
precedents and rulings, so many John Does who 
have brought suits against Ei chard Eoes, that you 
had better in all important business matters seek 
out an honest lawyer. 

''There are none such!" cries out Quizzle. 

Why, where have you lived? There are as 
many honest men in the legal profession as in 
any other, and rogues more than enough in all 
professions. Many a farmer, going down to attend 
court in the county-seat, takes a load of produce 
to the market, carefully putting the specked 
apples at the bottom of the barrel, and hiding 
among the fresh ones the egg w^hich some dis- 
couraged hen after live weeks of ''setting" had 
abandoned, and having secured the sale of his 
produce and lost his suit in the "Court of Com- 
mon Pleas, " has come home denouncing the 
scoundrelism of attorneys. 

You shall find plenty of honest lawyers if you 
really need them ; and in matters involving large 
interests you had better employ them. 

Especially avoid the mistake of making your own 
' ' last will and testament' ' unless you have great le- 
gal skillfulness. Better leave no will at ail than one 
inefficiently constructed. The "Orphans' Court" 
could tell many a tragedy of property distributed 
adverse to the intention of the testator. You save 
twenty to a hundred dollars from your counsel by 
writing your own will, and your heirs pay ten 
thousand dollars to lawyers in disputes over it. 
Perhaps those whom you have wished especially to 
favor will get the least of your estate, and a relative 
against whom you always had especial dislike 
will get the most, and your charities will be appor- 
tioned differently from what you anticipated — a 
hundred dollars to the Bible Society, and three 
thousand to the ' ' hook and ladder companj^ ' ' 



IVlsonaji a) id Oidz'zle. 239 

Quizzle. — Do you not think, governor (to go 
back to the subject from which we wandered), 
that your good spirits liave had much to do with 
your good health? 

Wiseman. — No doubt. I see no reason why, 
because I am advancing in years, I should become 
melancholy. 

One of the heartiest things I liave seen of late is 
the letter of Rev. Dr. Dowling as he retires from 
active work in the ministry. He hands over his 
work to the younger brethren v/ithout sigh, or 
groan, or regret. He sees the sun is quite far 
down in the west, and he feels like hanging up 
his scythe in the first apple tree he comes to. 
Our opinion is that he has made a little mistake 
in the time of day, and that w^hile he thinks it 
is about half-past five in the afternoon, it is only 
about three. I guess his watch is out of order, 
and that he has been led to think it later than it 
really is. But when we remember how much 
good he has done, we will not begrudge him his 
rest either here or hereafter. 

At any rate, taking the doctor's cheerful vale- 
dictory for a text, I might preach a little bit of a 
sermon on the best way of getting old. Do not 
be fretted because you have to come to spectacles. 
While glasses look jDremature on a young man's 
nose, they are an adornment on an octogenarian's 
face. Besides that, when your eyesight is poor, 
you miss seeing a great many unpleasant things 
that youngsters are obliged to*^ look at. 

Do not be worried because your ear is becom- 
ing dull. In that way you escape being bored 
w^ith many of the foolish things that are said. 
If the gates of sound keep out some of the music, 
they also keep out much of the discord. If the 
hair be getting thin, it takes less time to comb 
it, and then it is not all the time falling down 
over your eyes ; or if it be getting white, I think 



-240 Around the Tea-table, 

that color is quite as respectable as any other: 
that is the color of thesnoy/, and of the blossoms, 
and of the clouds, and of angelic habiliments. 

Do not worry because the time comes on when 
you must go into the next world. It is only a 
better room, with finer pictures, brighter society 
and sweeter music. Kobert McCheyne, and John 
Knox, and Harriet Newell, and Mrs. Hemans,and 
John Milton, and Martin Luther will be good 
enough company for the most of us. The corn- 
shocks standing in the fields to-day will not sigh 
dismally when the buskers leap over the fence, 
and throwing their arms around the stack, swing 
it to the ground. It is only to take the golden 
ear from the husk. Death to the aged Christian 
is only husking-time, and then the load goes in 
from the frosts to the garner. 

My congratulations to those who are nearly 
done ¥/ith the nuisances of this world. Give 
your staff to your little grandson to ride horse on. 
You are going to be young again, and you y/ill 
have no need of crutches. May the clouds 
around the setting sun be golden, and such as to 
lead the ''weather-wise" to prophesy a clear 
morning! 

Quizzie. — But, Governor Wiseman, does it not 
give you a little uneasiness in this day of so much 
talk about cremation as to what will become of 
your body after you leave this sphere? 

At this point Doctor Heavyasbricks wiped his 
spectacles, as though he could not see well, and 
interrupted the conversation by saying, " Crema- 
tion! Cremation! What's that?" Sitting at the 
head of the table, I explained that it was the 
reduction of the deceased human body through 
fire into ashes to be preserved in an urn. '^Ah! 
ah!" said Doctor Heavyasbricks, "I had the 
idea, from the sound of that word 'cremation,' it 
must be sometliin^ connected with cream. I will 



Wise ma 72 and Quizzic, 241 

take a little more of that delicious bovine liqiiul 
in my tea, if you please," said the doctor as he 
passed his cup toward the urn, adding, to the 
lady of the house, ''I hope that urn you have 
your hand on has nothing to do with cremation. ' ' 
This explanation having been made, Governor 
Wiseman proceeded to answer the question of 
Quizzle : 

No ; I have no uneasiness about my body after 
I have left it. The idea you speak of will never 
be carried out. I know that the papers are ardently 
discussing whether or not it will be best to burn 
the bodies of the dead, instead of burying them. 
Scientific journals contend that our cemeteries are 
the means of unhealthy exhalations, and that 
€remation is the only safe way of disposing of the 
departed. Some have advocated the chemical re- 
duction of the physical system. 

I have, as yet, been unable to throw myself 
into a mood sufficiently scientific to appreciate 
this proposal. It seems to me partly horrible and 
partly ludicrous. I think that the dead popula- 
tions of the world are really the most quiet and 
unharmfal. They make no war upon us, and v/e 
need make no war upon them. I am very certain 
that ail the damage we shall ever do this world, 
wall be while we are animate. It is not the dead 
people that are hard to manage, but the living. 
Some whistle to keep their courage up while going 
along by graveyards ; I w^histle while moving 
among the wide awake. Before attempting this 
barbaric disposal of the human form as a sanitary 
improvement, it would be better to clear the 
streets and ''commons" of our cities of their 
pestiferous surroundings. Try your cremation on 
the dogs and cats with extinct animation. 

We think Greenwood is healthier than Broad- 
way, and Laurel Hill than Chestnut street, Pere 
la Chaise than Champs Elysees. Urns, with 



242 Arotmd the Tea-table, 

ashes scientifically prepared, may look very well 
in Madras or Pekin, but not in a Christian 
country. Not having been able to shake ott' the 
Bible notions about Christian burial, we adhere 
to the mode that was observed when devout men 
carried Stephen to his burial. Better not come 
around here with your chemical apparatus for the 
reduction of the human body. I give fair warn- 
ing that if your philosopher attempts such a 
process on my bones, and I am of the same way 
of thinking as now, he v/iil be sorr}^ for it. 

But I have no fear that I shall thus be desecrated 
by my surviving friends. I have more fear of 
epitaphs. I do not wonder that people have some- 
times dictated the inscription on their own tomb- 
stones when I see what inappropriate lines are 
chiseled on many a slab. There needs to be a 
reformation in epitaph ioiogy. 

People often ask me for appropriate inscrip- 
tions for the graves of their dead. They tell the 
virtues of the father, or wife, or child, and want 
me to put in compressed shape all that catalogue 
of excellences. 

Of course I fail in the attempt. The story of a 
lifetime cannot be chiseled by the stone-cutter 
on the side of a marble slab. But it is not a rare 
thing to go a few months after by the sacred spot 
and find that the bereft friends, unable to get 
from others an epitaph sufiiciently eulogistic, 
have put their own brain and heart to work and 
composed a rhyme. Now, the most unfit sphere 
on earth for an inexperienced mind to exercise 
the poetic faculty is in epitaphiology. It does 
very well in copy-books, but it is most unfair to 
blot the resting-place of the dead with unskilled 
poetic scribble. It seems to me that the owners 
of cemeteries and graveyards should keep in their 
ov/n hand the right to refuse inappropriate and 
ludicrous epitaph. 



lVlse7?ia7i and Ouizzle. 243 

Nine-tenths of those who think they can write 
respectable poetry are mistaken. I do not say 
that poesy has passed from the earth, but it does 
seem as if the fountain Ilippocrene had been 
drained off to run a saw-mill. It is safe to say 
that most of the home-made poetry of graveyards 
is an offence to God and man. 

One would have thought that the Nev^^ Hamp- 
shire village would have risen in mob to prevent 
the inscription that was really placed on one of 
its tombstones descriptive of a man Vv^ho had lost 
his life at the foot of a vicious mare on the way 
to brook: 

'^As this man was leading her to drink 

She kick'd and kill'd him quicker'n a wink. '^ 

One w^ould have thought that even conservative 
New Jersey would have been in rebellion at a 
child's epitaph which in a village of that State 
reads thus: 

''She was not smart, she v/as not fair, 
But hearts witii grief for her are swellin' ; 

All empty stands her little chair: 
She died of eatin' watermelon." 

Let not such discretions be allow^ed in hallowed 
places. Let not poetizers practice on the tomb- 
stone. My uniform advice to all those who want 
acceptable and suggestive epitaph is, Take a pas- 
sage of Scripture. That will never wear out. 
From generation to generation it w^ill bring down 
upon all visitors a holy hush ; and if before that 
stone has crumbled the day comes for waking up 
of all the graveyard sleepers, the very words 
chiseled on the marble may be the ones that shall 
ring from the trumpet of the archangel. 

While the governor was buttering another 
muffin, and, according to the dietetic principle a 
little while ago announced, allowing it sufficiently 



;244 Aroufid the Tea-table, 

to cool off, he continued the subject already 
opened by saying : I. keep well by allowing hardly 
.anything to trouble me, and by looking on the 
bright side of everything. One half of the people 
fret themselves to death. 

Four months ago the air was full of evil proph- 
ecies. If a man believed one half he saw in the 
newspapers, he must have felt that this world 
was a failure, not paying more than ten cents on 
a dollar. To one good prophet like Isaiah or 
Ezekiel we had a thousand Balaams, each mounted 
on his appropriate nag. 

First came the fearful announcement that in 
-consequence of the financial depression we would 
-have bread-riots innumerable and great slaughter. 
But where have been your riots? There was 
here and there a swinging of shillalahs, and a 
few broken heads which would probably have got 
broken anyhow ; but the men who made the dis- 
turbance were found to be lounging vagabonds 
who never worked even when they had a chance. 

Prophecy was also made that there would be a 
general starvation. We do not believe that in the 
United States there have been twenty sober people 
famished in the last year. Aware of the unusual 
stress upon the poor, the hand of charity has 
been more active and full than ever; and though 
many have been denied their accustomed luxuries, 
there has been bread for all. 

Weather prophets also promised us a winter of 
unusual severit}^ They knew it from the amount 
of investment the squirrels had made in winter 
stock, and from the superabundance of wool on 
the sheep's back, and the lavishness of the dog's 
hair. Are the liars ready to confess their fault? 
The boys have found but little chance to use their 
skates, and I think the sheep-shearing of the 
flocks on celestial pasture-fields must have been 
'Omitted, judging from the small amount of snowy 



Wiseman and Quizzle, 245 

fleece that has fallen through the air. I have not- 
had on my big mittens but once or twice, and my 
long-ago frost-bitten left ear has not demanded 
an extra pinching. To make up for the lack of 
fuel on the hearth, the great brass handiron of 
the sun has been kept unusually briglit and hot. 
And yesterday we heard the horn of the south 
wind telling that the flowery bands of spring 
are on the way up from Florida. 

The necessity for retrenchment has blessed the 
whole land. Many of us have learned how to 
make a thousand dollars do what fifteen hundred 
dollars — 

Quizzle broke in at the first opportunity and 
said, ^'No doubt, governor, it is easy for you to 
be placid, for everything has gone well with you. 
since you started life, w^hereas my mother died 
when I was little, and I was kicked and cufied 
about by a step-mother whose name I cannot 
bear to hear. ' ' 

Ha ! ha ! said Governor Wiseman. It is the old 
story of step-mothers. I don't believe they are 
any worse than other people, taking the average. 
I have often wondered why it is that the novels; 
and romances always make the step-mother turn 
out so very badly. She always dresses too much 
and bangs the children. The authors, if writing 
out of their own experience, must have had a 
very hard time. 

In society it has become a proverb : ' ' Cruel as 
a step-mother. " I am disposed, however, to think 
that, while there may be marked exceptions, 
step-mothers are the most self-sacrificing beings 
in all the world. They come into the family scrut- 
inized by the household and the relatives of the- 
one v/ho used to occupy the motherly position. 
Neighborly busybodies meet the children on the 
street and sigh over them and ask them how 
their new mother treats them. The wardrobe of 



246 Around the Tea-table, 

the youngsters comes under the severe inspection 
of outsiders. 

The child, having been taught that the lady of 
the household is "nothing but a step-mother," 
screams at the least chastisement, knowing that 
the neighbors' window is up and this will be a 
good way of making publication. That is called 
cruelty vdiich is only a most reasonable, moderate 
and Christian spanking. What a job she has in 
navigating a whole nursery of somebody else's 
children through mumps, measles, v/hooping- 
cough and chicken-pox ! One of the things that 
I rejoice over in life is that it is impossible that 
I ever become a step-mother. In many cases she 
has the largest possible toil for the least reward. 

Blessed be the Lord who setteth the solitary in 
families that there are glorious exceptions ! The 
new mother comes to the new home, and the chil- 
dren gather the first day around her as the natural 
protector. They never know the difference betv/een 
the first and second mother. They seem like two 
verses of the same hymn, two days of the sum- 
mer, two strokes of the same bell, two blessings 
from the same God. 

She is watchful all night long over the sick little 
one, bathing the brow and banishing the scare of 
the feverish dream, xifter a while those children 
will rise up to do her honor ; and when her work 
is done, she will go up to get the large reward 
that awaits a faithful, great-hearted Christian 
step-mother in the land where the neighbors all 
mind their ow^n business. 



CHAPTER LV. 
A LAYER OF WAFFLES. 

Several months had passed along since we had 
enjoyed the society of Governor Wiseman, Doctor 
Heavyasbricks and Fred Quizzle. At our especial 
call they had come again. 

The evening air was redolent with waffles 
baked in irons that had given them the square 
imprint which has come down through the ages 
as the only orthodox pattern. 

No sooner had our friends seated themselves at 
the tea-table than — 

Quizzle began : I see, Governor Wiseman, that 
the races have just come off in England. What 
do you think of horse-racing? 

Wiseman. — That has becom^e a very important 
question for every moralist to answer. I see that 
last week England took carriage and horses and 
went out to Epsom Lowns to see the Derby races. 
The race was won by Sir George Frederick ; that 
is the name of the successful iiorse. All the par- 
ticulars come by telegraph. There is much now 
being done for the turf in this country as well as 
in England, and these horses are improved year by 
year. I wonder if the race of men who frequent 
these entertainments are as much improved as the 
horses? I like horses very much, but I like men 
better. So far as we can judge, the horses are 
getting the best part of these exercises, for they 
never bet, and always come home sober. If the 
horses continue to come up as much as they have, 
and our sporting friends continue to go down in 
the same ratio, by an inevitable law of progres- 
sion we shall after a while have two men going 
round the course neck and neck, while Dexter and 



248 Around the Tea-table, 

Sir George Frederick are on the judges' stand de- 
ciding which man is the winner. 

Quizzle. — But do you not, Governor Wiseman, 
believe in out door sports and recreations? 

Yes, said the governor, but it ought to be 
something that helps a man as well as the brute. 
I prefer those recreations that are good both for 
a man's body and soul. We want our entire 
nature developed. 

Tv/o thousand people one morning waited at 
the depot in Albany for the arrival of the re- 
mains of the great pugilist, Heenan. Then they 
covered the coffin with immortelles. No wonder 
they felt badly. The poor fellow's w^ork was 
done. He had broken the last nose. He had 
knocked out the last tooth. He had bunged up 
the last eye. He had at last himself thrown up 
the sponge. The dead hero belonged to the aris- 
tocracy of hard-hitters. If I remember rightly, 
he drew the first blood in the conflict with one 
who afterward became one of the rulers of the 
nation — the Honorable John Morrissey, member 
of Congress of the United States and chief gam- 
bler at Saratoga. 

There is just now an attempt at the glorification 
of muscle. The man who can row the swiftest, 
or strike a ball the farthest, or drop the strongest 
wrestler is coming to be of more importance. 
Strong muscle is a grand thing to have, but every- 
thing depends on how you use it. If Heenan had 
become a Christian, he would have made a capi- 
tal professor in Polemic Theology. If the Har- 
vard or Yale student shall come in from the boat- 
race and apply his athletic strength to rowing the 
world out of the breakers, we say ''All hail!" to 
him. The more physical force a man has, the 
better; but if Samson finds nothing more useful 
to do than carrying of gate-posts, his strong mus- 
cle is only a nuisance 



A Layer of Waffles, 249 

By all means let us culture physical energy. 
Let there be more gymnasiums in our colleges 
and theological seminaries. Let the student 
know how to wield oar and bat, and in good 
boyish wrestle see wlio is the strongest. The 
health of mental and spiritual work often de- 
pends on physical health. If I were not opposed 
to betting, 1 would lay a wager that I can tell 
from the book column in any of the newspapers 
or magazines of the land the condition of each 
critic's liver and spleen at the time of his 
writing. 

A very prominent literary man apologized to 
me the other day for his merciless attack on one 
of my books, saying that he felt miserable that 
morning and must pitch into something; and 
my book being the first one on the table, he 
pitched into that. Our health decides our style 
of work. If this world is to be taken for God, 
we want more sanctified muscle. The man who 
comes to his Christian work having had sound 
sleep the night before, and the result of roast 
beef rare in his organism, can do almost any- 
thing. Luther was not obliged to nurse his 
appetite with any plantation bitters, but was 
ready for the coarsest diet, even the ''Diet of 
Worms. ' ' 

But while I advocate all sports, and exercises, 
and modes of life that improve the physical 
organism, I have no respect for bone, and nerve, 
and muscle in the abstract. Health is a fine 
harp, but I want to know what tune you are 
going to play on it. I have not one daisy to put 
on the grave of a dead pugilist or mere boat-racer, 
but all the garlands I can tv;ist for the tomb of 
the man who serves God, though he be as physi- 
cally weak as Richard Baxter, whose ailments 
were almost as many as his books, and they 
numbered forty. 



250 Around the Tea- table. 

At this last sentence the company at the table, 
forgetful of the presence of Doctor Heavyasbricks, 
showed some disposition at good hcmor, when 
the doctor's brows lifted in surprise, and he 
observed that he thought a man with forty ail- 
ments was a painful spectacle, and ought to be 
<ialculated to depress a tea-table rather than 
exhilarate it. 

'^But, Governor Wiseman, ' ^ said Quizzle, 'Mo 
you not think that it is possible to combine 
physical, mental and spiritual recreations?'' 

Oh yes, replied the governor; I like this new 
mode of mingling religion with summer pleasures. 
Soon the Methodists will be shaking out their 
tents and packing their lunch -baskets and buying 
their railroad and steamboat tickets for the carnp- 
meeting grounds. Martha's Vineyard, Round 
Lake, Ocean Grove and Sea Cliff will soon mingle 
psalms and prayers with the voice of surf and 
forest. Rev. Doctor J. H. Vincent, the silver 
trumpet of Sabbath-schoolism, is marshaling a 
meeting for the banks of Chautauqua Lake which 
will probably be the grandest religious picnic 
ever held since the five thousand sat down on the 
grass and had a surplus of provision to take home 
to those who were too stnpKi to go. From the 
arrangement being made for that meeting in 
August, I judge there will be so much consecrated 
enthusiasm that there may be danger that some 
morning, as the sun strikes gloriously through the 
ascending mist of Chautauqua Lake, our friends 
may all go up in a chariot of fire, leaving our 
Sunday-schools in a bereft condition. If they do 
go up in that way, may their mantle or their 
•straw hat fall this way ! 

Why not have all our churches and denomina- 
tions take a summer airing? The breath of the 
pine woods or a wrestle wdth the waters would 
put an end to everything like morbid religion. 



A Layer of Waffles. 251 

One reason why the apostles had such healthy- 
theology is that they went a-iishing: We would 
like to see the day when we will have Presby- 
terian camp-meetings, and Episcopalian camp- 
meetings, and Baptist camp-meetings, and Con- 
gregational camp-meetings, or, v/hat would be 
still better, when, forgetful of all minor distinc- 
tions, we could have a church universal camp- 
meeting. I would like to help plant the tent-pole 
for such a convocation. 

Quizzie. — Do you not think, governor, that 
there are inexpensive modes of recreation which 
are quite as good as those that absorb large means? 

Yes, said the governor ; we need to cut the coat 
according to our cloth. When I see that the 
Prince of Wales is three hundred thousand 
dollars in debt, notwithstanding his enormous 
income, I am forcibly reminded that it is not the 
amount of money a man gets that makes him v/eli 
oif, but the margin between the income and the 
outgo. The young man who while he makes a 
dollar spends a dollar and one cent is on the sure 
road either to^ bankruptcy or the penitentiary. 

Next to the evil of living beyond one's means 
is that of spending all one's income. There are 
multitudes who are sailing so near shore that a 
slight wind in the wrong direction founders them. 
They get on w^ell while the times are usual and 
the wages promptly paid ; but a panic or a short 
period of sickness, and they drop helpless. Many 
a father has gone with his family in a fine car- 
riage drawn by a spanking team till he came up 
to his grave ; then he lay dov/n, and his children 
have got out of the carriage, and not only been 
compelled to walk, but to go barefoot. Against 
parsimony and niggardliness I proclaim war ; but 
with the same sentence I condemn those who 
make a grand splash while they live, leavinjgr 
their families in destitution when they dk 



252 Around the Tea-table. 

Quizzle. — Where, governor, do you expect to 
recreate this coming summer? 

Wiseman. — Have not yet made up my mind. 
The question is coming up in all our households 
as to the best mode of vacation. We shall all 
need rest. The first thing to do is to measure the 
length of your purse ; you cannot make a short 
purse reach around Saratoga and the White Moun- 
tains. There may be as much health, good cheer 
and recuperation in a country farmhouse where 
the cows come up every night and yield milk 
without any chalk in it. 

What the people of our cities need is quiet. 
What the people of the country need is sightsee- 
ing. Let the mountains come to New York and 
New^ York go to the mountains. The nearest I 
ever get to heaven in this world is lying flat down 
on my back under a tree, looking up through the 
branches, fiye miles off from a post-office or a tele- 
graph station. But this would be torture to 
others. . 

Independent of what others do or say, let us in 
the selection of summer recreations study our own 
temperament and finances. It does not pay to 
spend so much money in July and August that 
you have to go pinched and half mad the rest of 
the year. The healthiest recreations do not cost 
much. In boyhood, with a string and a crooked 
pin attached to it, I fished up more fun from the 
mill-pond than last summer with a five-dollar 
apparatus I caught among the Franconia Moun- 
tains. 

There is a great area of enjoyment within the 
circumference of one dollar if you only know how 
to make the circuit. More depends upon our- 
selves than upon the afiiluence of our surroundings. 
If you are compelled to stay home all summer^ 
you may be as happy as though you went away. 
The enjoyment of the first of July, when I go 



A Layer of Waffles. 253 

ofif, is surpassed by nothing but the first of Sep- 
tember, when I come home. 

There being a slight pause in the conversation, 
Doctor Heavyasbricks woke gradually up and 
began to move his lips and to show strong symp- 
toms of intention to ask for himself a question. 
He said : I have been attending the anniversaries 
in New York, and find that they are about dead. 
Wiseman, can you tell me what killed them? 

Governor Wiseman replied : It is a great pity 
that the anniversaries are dead. They once live& 
a robust life, but began some fifteen years ago to 
languish, and have finally expired. To the appro- 
priate question. What killed them? I answer, 
Peregrination was one of the causes. There never 
has been any such place for the anniversaries as 
the Broadway Tabernacle. It was large and social 
and central. When that place was torn down, the 
anniversaries began their travels. Going some 
morning out of the warm sunshine into some 
cathedral-looking place, they got the chills, and 
under the dark stained glass everything looked 
blue. In the afternoon they would enter some 
great square hall where everything was formal. 

It is almost impossible to have a genial and suc- 
cessful meeting in a square hall. When in former 
days the country pastor said to his congregation, 
^'Meet me at the Nev/ York anniversaries," they 
all knew where to go ; but after the old Broad wa}^ 
Tabernacle went down, the aforesaid congregation 
might have looked in five or six places and not 
found their minister. The New York anniver- 
saries died on the street between the old Taber- 
nacle and St. Paul's Methodist Cathedral. 

Prolix reports also helped to kill the patient. 
Nothing which was not in its nature immortal 
could have survived these. The secretary vv'ould 
read till he got out of wind, and would then say 
that the remainder of the report would be found 



254 Around the Tea-table, 

in the printed copies in the pews. The speakers 
following had the burden of galvanizing an ex- 
hausted meeting, and the Cliristian man who 
attended the anniversary on retiring that evening 
had the nightmare in the shape of a portly secre- 
tary sitting astride his chest reading from* a huge 
scroll of documents. 

Diluted Christian oratory also helped to kill the 
anniversaries. The men whom we heard in our 
boyhood on the Broadway platform believed in a 
whole Bible, and felt that if the gospel did not 
save the world nothing ever would ; consequently, 
they spoke in blood-red earnestness and made the 
place quake with their enthusiasm. There came 
afterward a weak-kneed stock of ministers who 
thought that part of the Bible was true, if they 
were not very much mistaken, and that, on the 
whole, religion w^as a good thing for most people, 
certainly if they had weak constitutions, and that 
man could be easily saved if we could get the 
phrenologist to fix up his head, and the gymna- 
sium to develop his muscle, and the minister to 
coax him out of his indiscretions. Well, the 
anniversaries could not live on pap and confec- 
tionery, and so they died for lack of strong meat. 

But the day of resurrection will come. Mark 
that ! The tide of Bible evangelism will come up 
again. We may be dead, but our children will 
see it. New York will be thronged with men 
and women who will come up once a year to 
count the sheaves of harvest, and in some great 
building thronged from the platform to the vesti- 
bule an aroused Christian audience will applaud 
the news, just received by telegraph, of a nation 
born in a day, and sing with more power than 
when Thomas Hastings used to act as precentor : 

' * The year of jubilee has come ; 
Return, ye ransom 'd sinners, home. ** 



A Layer of Waffles, 255 

Quizzle. — You speak, governor, of the ruinous 
effect of prolixity in religious service. How long 
ought a public service continue? 

Wiseman. — There is much discussion in the 
papers as to how long or short sermons and 
prayers ought to be. Some say a discourse ought 
to last thirty minutes, and others forty, and 
others an hour, and prayers should be three 
minutes long, or five, or fifteen. You might as 
well discuss how long a frock-coat ought to be, or 
how many ounces of food a man ought to eat. 
In the one case, everything depends upon the 
man's size; in the other, everything on the 
capacity of his stomach. A sermon or a prayer 
ought to go on as long as it is of any profit. If 
it is doing no good, the sermon is half an hour 
too long, though it take only thirty minutes. If 
the audience cough, or fidget, or shuffle their 
feet, you had better stop praying. There is no 
excuse for a man's talking or praying too long if 
he have good eyesight and hearing. 

But suppose a man have his sermon written and 
before him. You say he must go through with 
it? Oh no. Let him skip a few leaves. Better 
sacrifice three or four sheets of sermon-paper than 
sacrifice the interest of your hearers. But it is a 
silly thing for a man in a prayer-meeting or 
pulpit to stop merely because a certain number of 
minutes have expired wdiile the interest is deep- 
ening — absurd as a hunter on the track of a roe- 
buck, and within tw^o minutes of bringing dovv^n its 
antlers, stopping because his wife said that at six 
o'clock precisely he must be home to supper. 
Keep on hunting till your ammunition gives out. 

Still, we must all admit that the danger is on 
the side of prolixity. The most interesting 
prayers we ever hear are by new converts, w^ha 
say everything they have to say and break down 
in one minute. There are men w^ho, from the 



256 Around the Tea-table. 

way they begin their supplications, indicate a 
long siege. They first pray you into a good 
frame, and then pray you out. They take 
literally what Paul meant to be figurative : ' ' Pray 
without ceasing. ' ' 

Quizzle. — I see there was no lack of interest 
when the brewers' convention met the other day 
in Boston, and that in their longest session the 
attention did not flag. 

Wiseman. — Yes; I see that speeches were made 
on the beneficial use of fermented liquors. The 
announcement was made that during the year 
8,910,823 barrels of the precious stuff had been 
manufactured. I suppose that while the conven- 
tion was there Boston must have smelt like one 
great ale-pitcher. The delegates were invited to 
visit the suburbs of the city. Strange that 
nobody thought of inviting them to visit the 
cemeteries and graveyards, especially the potter's 
field, where thousands of their victims are buried. 
Perhaps you are in sympathy with these brewers, 
and say that if people would take beer instead of 
alcohol drunkenness would cease. But for the 
vast majority who drink, beer is only intro- 
ductory to something stronger. It is only one 
carriage in the same funeral. Do not spell it 
b-e-e-r, but spell it b-i-e-r. May the lightnings 
of heaven strike and consume all the breweries 
from river Penobscot to the Golden Horn ! 

Quizzle. — I see, governor, that you were last 
-week in Washington. How do things look there? 

Wiseman. — Very well. The general appearance 
of our national capital never changes. It is 
always just as far from the Senate-chamber to the 
White House ; indeed, so far that many of our 
great men have never been able to travel it. 
There are the usual number of petitioners for 
governmental patronage hanging around the hotels 
and the congressional lobbies. They are willing 



A Layer of Waffles, 257 

to take almost anything they can get, from 
minister to Spain to village postmaster. They 
come in with the same kind of carpet-bags, look 
stupid and anxious for several days, and having 
borrowed money enough from the member from 
their district to pay their fare, take the cars for 
home, denouncing the administration and the 
ungratefulness of republics. 

I think that the two houses of Congress are the 
best and most capable of any almost ever assem- 
bled. Of course there is a dearth of great men. 
Only here and there a Senator or Eepresentative 
you ever before heard of. Indeed, the nuisances 
of our national council in other days were the 
great men y/ho took, in making great speeches, 
the time that ought to have been spent in attend- 
ing to business. We all know that it was eight 
or ten ^'honorable" bloats of the last thirty years 
who made our chief international troubles. 

Our Congress is made up mostly of practical 
every-day men. They have no speeches to make, 
and no past political reputation to nurse, and no 
national fame to achieve. I like the new crop of 
statesmen better than the old, although it is a 
shorter crop. They do not drink so much rum, 
and not so large a proportion of them will die of 
delirium tremens. They may not have such 
resounding names as some of their predecessors, 
but I prefer a Congress of ordinary men to a 
group of Senators and Eepresentatives overawed 
and led about by five or six overgrown, political 
Brobdingnagians. 

While in Washington w^e had a startling occur- 
rence. A young man in high society shot 
another young man, who fell dead instantly. 

I vfonder that there is not more havoc with 
human life in this day, when it is getting so 
popular to carry firearms. Most of our young 
men, and many of our boys, do not feel them- 



25S Around the Tea-table, 

selves in tune unless they have a pistol accom- 
paniment. Men are locked up or fined if found 
with daggers or slung-shot upon their persons, but 
revolvers go free. There is not half so much 
danger from knife as pistol. The form^er may let 
the victim escape minus a good large slice, but 
the latter is apt to drop him dead. On the 
frontiers, or engaged in police duty, firearms may 
be necessary ; but in the ordinary walk of life 
pistols are, to say the least, a superfluity. Better 
empty your pockets of these dangerous weapons, 
and see that your sons do not carry them. In all 
the ordinary walks of life an honest countenance 
and orderly behavior are sufficient defence. You 
had better stop going into society where you must 
always be ready to shoot somebody. 

But do not think, my dear Fred, that I am 
opposed to everything because I have this evening 
spoken against so many different things. I can- 
not take the part of those who pride themselves 
in hurling a stout No against everything. 

A friend called my attention to the fact that 
Sanballat wanted to hold consultation with Nehe- 
miah in the plain of 0-no. That is the pLace 
where more people stay, to-day, than in any 
other. They are always protesting, throwing 
doubt on grand undertakings ; and vv^hile you are 
in the mountain of 0-yes, they spend their time 
on the plain of 0-no. In the harness of society 
they are breeching-straps, good for nothing but to 
hold back. 

You propose to call a minister. All the indica- 
tions are that he is the right man. Nine-tenths 
of the congregation are united in his favor. The 
matter is put to vote. The vast majority say 
*'Ay!'' the handful of opponents responded 
^'Ono!" 

You propose to build a new church. About the 
site, the choice of architect, the upholstery, the 



A Layer of Waffles. 259- 

plumbing and the day of dedication there is 
almost a unanimity. You hope that the crooked 
sticks will all lie still, and that the congregation 
vvill move in solid phalanx. But not so. San- 
ballat sends for Nehemiah, proposing to meet him 
in the plain of 0-no. 

Some men were born backward, and have been 
going that way ever since. Opposition to every- 
thing has become chronic. The only way they 
feel comfortable is when harnessed with the face 
toward the whiffletree and their back to the end 
of the shafts. They may set down their name in 
tlie hotel register as living in Boston, Chicago, 
Savannah or Brooklyn, but they really have 
been spending all their lives on the plain of 0-no. 
There let them be buried with their face toward 
the west, for in that way they will lie more com- 
fortably, as other people are buried with their 
face to the east. Do not impose upon them by 
putting them in the majority. 0-no ! 

We rejoice that there seems more liberality 
among good men, and that they have made up 
their minds to let each one work in his own way. 
The scalping-knives are being dulled. 

The cheerfulness and good humor which have 
this year characterized our church courts is 
remarkable and in strong contrast with the old- 
time ecclesiastical fights which shook synods and 
conferences. Eeligious controversies alw^ays have 
been the most bitter of all controversies; and 
when ministers do iight, they fight like ven- 
geance. Once a church court visiting a place 
would not only spend much of their own time in 
sharp contention, but would leave the religious 
community to continue the quarrel after adjourn- 
ment. Now they have a time of good cheer while 
in convention, and leave only one dispute behind 
them among the families, and that arising from 
the fact that each one claims it had the best 



26o Around the Tea-table, 

ministers and elders at their house. Contention 
is a child of the darkness, peace the daughter of 
the light. The only help for a cow's hollow horn 
is a gimlet-hole bored through it, and the best 
way to cure religious combatants is to let more 
gospel light through their antlers. 

As we sat at the head of the table interested in 
all that was going on, and saw Governor Wiseman 
with his honorable name, and Quizzie and Heav}^- 
asbricks with their unattractive titles, we thought 
of the affliction of an awkward or ill-omened 
name. 

When there are so many pleasant names by 
which children may be called, what right has a 
parent to place on his child's head a disadvantage 
at the start? Worse than the gauntlet of measles 
and whooping-cough and mumps which the little 
ones have to run is this parental outrage. 

What a struggle in life that child will have who 
has been baptized Jedekiah or Mehitabei ! If a 
■child is ^'called after" some one living, let that 
one be past mid-life and of such temperament 
that there shall be no danger of his becoming an 
absconder and a cheat. As far as possible let the 
name given be short, so that in the course of a 
lifetime there be not too many weeks or monthis 
taken up in the mere act of signature. The bur- 
dens of life are heavy enougii without putting 
upon any one the exitra weight of too much no- 
menclature. It is a sad thing when an infant has 
two bachelor uncles, both rich and with out- 
rageous names, for the baby will have to take 
both titles, and that is enough to make a case of 
infant mortality. 

Quizzie. — You seem to me, governor, to be more 
sprightly at every interview. 

Well, that is so, but I do not know how long it 
will last ; stout people like myself often go tb^ 
quickest. 



A Layer of Waffles. 261 

There is a constant sympathy expressed b^ 
robust people for those of slight physical constitu- 
tion. I think the sympathy ought to turn in the 
opposite direction. It is the delicate people who 
escape the most fearful disorders, and in three 
cases out of four live the longest. These gigantic 
structures are almost always reckless of health. 
They say, ' 'Nothing hurts me, " and so they stand 
in draughts, and go out into the night air to cool 
off, and eat crabs at midnight, and doif their 
flannels in April, and carelessly get their feet wet. 

But the delicate people are shy of peril. They 
know that disease has been fishing for them for 
twenty years, and they keep away from the hook. 
No trout can be caught if he sees the shadow of 
the sportsman on the brook. These people whom 
everybody expects to die, live on most tena- 
ciously. 

I know of a young lady who evidently married 
a very wealthy man of eighty-five years on the 
ground he was very delicate, and with reference 
to her one-third. But the aged invalid is so care- 
ful of his health, and the young wife so reckless 
of hers, that it is now uncertain whether she will 
inherit his store-houses or he inherit her wedding- 
rings. 

Health and longevity depend more upon caution 
and intelligent management of one's self than 
upon original physical outfit. Paul's advice to 
the sheritf is appropriate to people in all occupa- 
tions : "Do thyself no harm ! ' ' 

Besides that, said the governor, I have moved 
and settled in very comfortable quarters since I 
was at this table before. The house I have moved 
in is not a better house, but somehow I feel more- 
contented. 

Most of our households are quieted after the 
great annual upsetting. The last carpet is tacked 
down. The strings that were scattered along the 



262 Arou7id the Tea-table, 

floor have been rolled up in a ball. We begin to 
know the turns in the stairway. Things are 
settling down, and we shall soon feel at home in 
our new residence. If it is a better house than 
we had, do not let us be too proud of the door- 
plate, nor worship too ardently the fine cornice, 
nor have any idea that superb surroundings are 
-going to make us any happier than we were .in 
the old house. 

Set not your affections on luxurious upholstery 
and spacious drawing-room. Be grateful and be 
humble. 

If the house is not as large nor in as good 
neighborhood as the one you formerly occupied, 
make the best of it. It is astonishing what 
a good time you may have in a small room. Your 
present neighbors are just as kind as those you 
left, if you only knew them. Do not go around 
your house sticking up your nose at the small 
pantry, and the ugly mantel-pieces, and the low 
ceiling. It is a better place than your divine 
Master occupied, and to say the least you are no 
better than He. If you are a Christian, you are 
on your way to a King's mansion, and you are 
now only stopping a little in the porter's lodge at 
the gate. Go down in the dark lanes of the city 
and see how much poorer off many of your fel- 
loY/-citizens are. If the heart be right, the home 
will be right. 



CHAPTER I.VI. 
FRIDAY EVENING. 

Our friend Churchill was a great man for reli- 
gious meetings. As he shoved back from our tea- 
table he said, "I must be oif to church. " 

Then he yawned as though he expected to have 
a dull time, and asked me why it was that reli- 
gious meetings were often so very insipid and that 
many people went to them merely as a matter of 
duty. Without waiting for me to give my opin- 
ion, he said he thought that there w^as a sombre 
hue given to such meetings that was killing and 
in a sort of soliloquy continued : 

There is one thing Satan does well. He is good 
at stating the discouraging side. He knows how 
to fish for obstacles, and every time brings up his 
net full. Do not let us help him in his work. 
If you have anything to say in prayer-meeting 
that is disheartening, may you forget your speech ! 
Tell us something on the bright side. 

I know a Christian man who did something out- 
rageously wrong. Some one said to me: ''Why 
do you not expose him?" I replied : ' ' That is the 
devil's work and it will be thoroughly done. If 
there is anything good about him, we would 
rather speak of that. ' ' 

Give us no sermons or newspaper articles that 
are depressing. We know all that before you start ; 
amid the greatest disheartenments there are hope- 
ful things that may be said. While the Mediter- 
ranean corn-ship was going to smash, Paul told 
the crew to '^Be of good cheer. " We like apple 
trees because, though they are not handsome, they 
have bright blossoms and good fruit, but we 

263 



264 Around the Tea-table. 

despise weeping willows because they never do 
anything but cry. 

On a dark day do not go around closing the 
window-shutters. The world is dark enough with- 
out your making it more so. Is there anybody in 
the room who has a match? Please then strike it. 
There is only one kind of champagne that we 
temperance folks can take, and that is encourag- 
ing remark. It is a stimuluSj and what makes it 
better than all other kinds of champagne is it 
leaves no headache. 

I said to him, I think religious meetings have 
been improved in the last few years. One of the 
grandest results of the Fulton street prayer -meet- 
ing is the fact that all the devotional services of 
the country have been revolutionized. The tap of 
the bell of that historical prayer-meeting has 
shortened the prayers and exhortations of the 
church universal. 

But since it has become the custom to throw open 
the meetings for remark and exhortation, there 
has been a jubilee among the religious bores who 
wander around pestering the churches. We have 
two or three outsiders who come about once in 
six v/eeks into our prayer-meeting; and if they 
can get a chance to speak, they damage all the 
interest. They talk long and loud in proportion 
as they have nothing to say. They empty on us 
several bushels of ''ohs" and ^'ahs. " But they 
seldom get a chance, for w^e never throw the meet- 
ing open when we see they are there. We make 
such a close hedge of hymns and prayers that they 
cannot break into the garden. 

One of them we are free of because, one night, 
seeing him wiggle-waggle in his seat as if about 
to rise, we sent an elder to him to say that his 
remarks were not acceptable. The elder blushed 
and halted a little when we gave him the mission, 
but setting his teeth together he started for the 



Friday Evening, 265 

offensive brother, leaned over the back of the pew 
and discharged the duty. We have never seen 
that brother since, but once in the street, and then 
he was looking the other way. 

By what right such men go about in ecclesiasti- 
cal vagabondism to spoil the peace of devotional 
meetings it is impossible to tell. Either that nui- 
sance must be abated or we must cease to "throw 
open" our prayer-meetings for exhortation. 

A few words about the uses of a week-night 
service. Many Christians do not a^jpreciate it ; 
indeed, it is a great waste of time, unless there 
be some positive advantage gained. 

The French nation at one time tried having a 
Sabbath only once in ten days. The intelligent 
Christian Unds he needs a Sabbath every three or 
four days, and so builds a brief one on the shore 
of a week-day in the shape of an extra religious 
service. He gets grace on Sabbath to bridge the 
chasm of worldliness between that and the next 
Sabbath, but finds the arch of the bridge very 
great, and so runs up a pier midway to help sus- 
tain the pressure. 

There are one hundred and sixty-eight hours in 
a week, and but two hours of public religious 
service on Sabbath. What chance have two hours 
in a battle with one hundred and sixty-eight? 

A week-night meeting allows church member- 
ship utterance. A minister cannot know how to 
preach unless in a conference meeting he finds 
the religious state of the people. He must feel the 
pulse before giving the medicine, otherwise he 
will not know whether it ought to be an anodyne 
or a stimulant. Every Christian ought to have 
something to say. Every man is a walking eter- 
nity. The plainest man has Omnipotence to de- 
fend him. Omniscience to watch him, infinite 
Goodness to provide for him. The tamest reli- 
gious experience has in it poems, tragedies, his- 



266 Arou7td the Tea-table, 

torieSj Iliads, Paradise Lost and Paradise Kegained. 
Ought not such a one have something to say? 

If you were ever in the army you know what 
it is to see an officer on horseback dash swiftly 
past carrying a dispatch. You wondered as he went 
what the news was. Was the army to advance, or 
w^as an enemy coming? 

So every Christian carries a dispatch from God 
to the world. Let him ride sv>^iftiy to deliver it. 
The army is to advance and the enemy is coming. 
Go out and fulfill your mission. You may have 
had a letter committed to your care, and after 
some days you find it in one of your pockets, you 
forgot to deliver it. Great was your chagrin when 
you found that it pertained to some sickness or 
trouble. God gives every man a letter of warn- 
ing or invitation to carry, and what will be your 
chagrin in the judgment to find that you have 
jforgotten it! 

A week-night meeting widens the pulpit till all 
fthe people can stand on it. Such a service tests 
'One's piety. No credit for going to church on 
.iSabbath. Places of amusement are all closed, and 
there is no money to be made. But week-nights 
'-every kind of temptation and opportunity spreads 
before a man, and if he goes to the praying circle 
ihe must give up these things. The man who goes 
lo the weekly service regularly through moonlight 
;and pitch darkness, through good walking and 
fslush ankle-deep, will in the book of judgment 
^find it set down to his credit. He will have a 
(better seat Sn heaven than the man who went 
lonly w^hen the walking was good, and the wreath er 
•comfortable, and the services attractive, and his 
Ileal til perfect. That service which costs nothing 
God accounts as nothing. 

A week-night service thrusts religion in the 
secularities of the week. It is as much as to say, 
'^'This is God's Wednesday, or God's Thursday, 



Friday Evening, 267 

or God's Friday, or God's week." You would 
not ^Tive much for a property the possession of 
which you could have only one-seventh of the 
time, and God does not want that man whose ser- 
vices he can have only on Sabbath. If you paid 
full wages to a man and found out that six-sevenths 
of the time he was serving a rival house, you 
would be indignant; and the man who takes 
God's goodness and gives six-sevenths of his time 
to the world, the flesh and the devil is an abomi- 
nation to the Lord. The whole week ought to be 
a temple of seven rooms dedicated to God. You 
may, if you will, make one room the holy of holies, 
but let all the temple be consecrate. 

The week-night service gives additional oppor- 
tunity of religious culture, and we find it so diffi- 
cult to do right and be right that we cannot afford 
to miss any opportunity. Such a service is a lunch 
between the Sabbath meals, and if we do not take 
it we get weak and faint. A truth coming to us 
then ought to be especially effective. 

If 3^ou are on a railroad train, and stop at the 
depot, and a boy comes in with a telegram, all 
the passengers lean forward and wonder if it is 
for them. It may be news from home. It must 
be urgent or it would not be brought there. Now^, 
if while we are rushing on in the whirl of every- 
day excitement, a message of God meets us, it 
must be an urgent and important message. If God 
speaks to us in a meeting mid-week, it is because 
there is something that needs to be said before 
next Sunday. 



Sabbath 

Evening 
Tea-table 



CHAPTER LVII. 
THE SABBATH EVENING TEA-TABLE. 

When this evening comes we do not have any 
less on our table because it is a sacred day, but a 
little more. On other evenings we have in our 
dining-hall three of the gas-burners lighted, but 
on Sabbath evening we have four. We try to have 
the conversation cheerfully religious. 

After the children are sleepy we do not keep 
them up to recite the "Larger Catechism. " Dur- 
ing summer vacation, when we have no evening 
service to attend at church, we sometimes have a 
few chapters of a Christian book read or a column 
of a Christian newspaper, or if any one has an 
essay on any religious theme, we hear that. 

We tarry long after the tea has got cold. We do 
not care if the things are not cleared oft' till next 
morning. If any one has a perplexing passage of 
Scripture to explain, we gather all the lights pos- 
sible on that subject. We send up stairs for con- 
cordance and Bible dictionary. It may be ten 
o'clock at night before the group is dispersed from 
the Sabbath evening tea-table. 

Some of the chapters following may be consid- 
ered as conversations condensed or as paragraphs? 
read. You will sometimes ascribe them to the host, 
at other times to the hostess, at other times to the- 
strangers within the gates. 

Old Dominie Scattergood often came in on Sab- 
bath evenings. He was too old to preach, and so- 
had much leisure. Now, an old minister is a great 
joy to us, especially if life has put sugar rather 
than vinegar in his disposition. Dominie Scatter- 
good had in his face and temper the smiles of all 

271 



272 Ajvzmd the Tea-table, 

the weddings he had ever solemnized, and in his 
handshaking all the hearty congratulations that 
had ever been offered him. 

His hair was as white as any snow-bank through 
which he had waded to meet his appointments. 
He sympathized with every one, could swing from 
mood to mood very easily, and found the bridge 
between laughter and tears a short one and soon 
crossed. He was like an orchard in October after 
some of the frosts, the fruit so ripe and mellow 
that the least breeze would fill the laps of the chil- 
dren. He ate scarcely anything at the tea-table, 
for you do not want to put much fuel in an engine 
when it has nearly reached the depot. Old Dom- 
inie Scattergood gave his entire time to religious 
discourse when he sat w^ith us at the close of the 
Lord's day. 

How calm and bright and restful the light that 
falls on the Sabbath evening tea-table! Blessed 
be its memories for ever and ever! and Jessie, 
and De Witt, and May, and Edith, and Frank^ 
and the baby, and all the visitors, old and young, 
thick-haired and bald-headed, say Amen ! 



CHAPTER LVIII. 
THE WARM HEART OF CHRIST. 

The first night that old Dominie Scattergood sat 
at our tea-table, we asked him whether he could 
make his religion work in the insignificant affairs 
of life, or whether he was accustomed to apply 
his religion on a larger scale. The Dominie turned 
upon us like a day-dawn, and addressed us as 
follows : 

There is no warmer Bible phrase than this: 
"Touched with the feeling of our infirmities.'^ 
The Divine nature is so vast, and the human so 
small, that we are apt to think that they do not 
touch each other at any point. We might have 
ever so many mishaps, the government at Wash- 
ington would not hear of them, and there are 
multitudes in Britain whose troubles Victoria 
never knows ; but there is a throne against which 
strike our most insignificant perplexities. What 
touches us, touches Christ. What annoys us, an- 
noys Christ. What robs us, robs Christ. He is 
the great nerve-centre to which thrill all sensa- 
tions which touch us who are his members. 

He is touched with our physical infirmities. I 
do not mean that he merely sympathizes with a 
patient in collapse of cholera, or in the delirium 
of a yellow fever, or in the anguish of a broken 
back, or in all those annoyances that come from 
a disordered nervous condition. In our excited 
American life sound nerves are a rarity. Human 
sympathy in the case I mention amounts to noth- 
ing. Your friends laugh at you and say you have 
"the blues," or "the high strikes, '' *^or "the 
dumps," or "the fidgets." But Christ never 

273 



274 Around the Tea-table, 

laughs at the whims, the notions, the conceitSj, 
the weaknesses, of the nervously disordered^ 
Christ probably suffered in something like this 
way, for He had lack of sleep, lack of rest, lack of 
right food, lack of shelter, and His temperament 
was finely strung. 

Chronic complaints, the rheumatism, the neu- 
ralgia, the dyspepsia, after a while cease to excite 
human sympathy, but with Christ they never be- 
come an old story. He is as sympathetic as when 
you felt the first twinge of inflamed muscle or 
the first pang of indigestion. When you cannot 
sleep, Christ keeps awake with you. All the 
pains you ever had in your head are not equal to 
the pains Christ had in His head. All the acute 
suflTering you ever had in your feet is not equal 
to the acute sufi'ering Christ had in His feet. By 
His own hand He fashioned your every bone, 
strung every nerve, grew every eyelash, set every 
tooth in its socket, and your every physical dis- 
order is patent to Him, and touches His sympa- 
thies. 

He is also touched with the infirmities of our 
prayers. Nothing bothers the Christian more than 
the imperfections of his prayers. His getting 
down on his knees seems to be the signal for his 
thoughts to fly every whither. While praying 
about one thing he is thinking about another. 
Could you ever keep your mind ten minutes on 
one supplication? I never could. While you are 
praying, your store comes in, your kitchen comes 
in, your losses and gains come in. The minister 
spreads his hands for prayer, and you put your 
head on the back of the pew in front, and travel 
round the world in five minutes. 

A brother rises in prayer-meeting to lead in 
supplication. After he has begun, the door slams, 
and you peep through your fingers to see who is- 
coming in. You say to yourself, ^'What a finely 



The Warm Heart of Christ, 275 

expressed prayer, or what a blundering specimen ! 
But how long he keeps on ! Wish he would stop ! 
He prays for the world's conversion. I wonder 
how much he gives toward it? There! I don't 
think I turned the gas down in the parlor! 
Wonder if Bridget has got home yet? Wonder if 
they have thought to take that cake out of the 
oven? Oh what a fool I was to put my name on 
the back of that note ! Ought to have sold those 
goods for cash and not on credit ! ' ' And so you 
go on tumbling over one thing after another until 
the gentleman closes his prayer w4th Amen ! and 
you lift up your head, saying, ^' There! I haven't 
prayed one bit. I am not a Christian!" Yes, 
you are, if you have resisted the tendency. Christ 
knows how much you have resisted, and how 
thoroughly we are disordered of sin, and He will 
pick out the one earnest petition from the rub- 
bish and answer it. To the very depth of His 
nature He sympathizes with the infirmity of our 
prayers. 

He is touched with the infirmity of our temper. 

There are some who, notwithstanding all that 
is said or done to them can smile back. But many 
of you are so constructed that if a man insults 
you, you either knock him down or wish you 
could. While with all resolution and prayer you 
resist this, remember that Christ knows how much 
you have been lied about, and misrepresented, 
and trod on. He knows that though you said 
something that was hot, you kept back something 
that was ten times hotter. He takes into account 
your explosive temperament. He knows that it 
requires more skill to drive a fiery span than a 
tame roadster. He knows how hard you have 
put down the '^brakes" and is touched with the 
feeling of your infirmity. 

Christ also sympathizes with our poor efforts at 
doing good. 



276 Around the Tea- table. 

Our work does not seem to amount to much. 
We teach a class, or distribute a bundle of tracts, 
or preach a sermon, and we say, ''Oh, if I had 
done it some other way!" Christ will make no 
record of our bungling way, if we did the best 
we could. He will make record of our intention 
and the earnestness of our attempt. We cannot 
get the attention of our class, or we break down 
in our exhortation, or our sermon falls dead, and 
we go home disgusted, and sorry we tried to 
speak, and feel Christ is afar off. Why, He is 
nearer than if we had succeeded, for He knows 
that we need sympathy, and is touched with our 
infirmity. 

It is comforting to know that it is not the 
learned and the great and the eloquent that Christ 
seems to stand closest by. The ''Swamp-angel'^ 
was a big gun, and made a stunning noise, but it 
burst before it accomplished anything, while 
many an humble rifle helped decide the contest. 
Christ made salve out of spittle to cure a blind 
man, and the humblest instrumentality may, 
under God, cure the blindness of the soul. Blessed 
be God for the comfort of His gospel I 



CHAPTER IvIX. 
SACRIFICING EVERYTHING. 

Ourselves. — Dominie Scattergood, why did 
Christ tell the man inquiring about his soul to 
sell all he had and give everything to the poor? 
Is it necessary for one to impoverish himself in 
order to be a Christian? 

The Dominie. — You mistake the purport of 
Christ's remark. He was not here teaching the 
importance of benevolence, but the duty of self- 
conquest. That young man had an all absorbing 
love of wealth. Money was his god, and Christ it:? 
not willing to occupy the throne conjointly with 
any other deity. This was a case for what the 
doctors call heroic treatm.ent. If a physician 
meet a case of unimportant sickness, he prescribes 
a mild curative, but sometimes he comes to a room 
where the case is almost desperate ; ordinary medi- 
cine w^ould not touch it. It is ''kill or cure," 
and he treats accordingly. This young man that 
Christ was medicating was such a case. There 
did not seem much prospect, and He gives him 
this powerful dose, "Sell all that thou hast and 
give to the poor ! ' ' 

It does not follow that we must all do the same, 
any more than because belladonna or arsenic is 
administered in one case of illness we should 
therefore all go to taking belladonna or arsenic. 
Because one man in the hospital must have his 
arm amputated all the patients need not expect 
amputation. The silliest thing that business-men 
could do would be to give all their property away 
and turn their families into the street. The most 
Christian thing for you to do is to invest your 

277 



278 ■ Arotind the Tea-table, 

money in the best way possible, and out of your 
business, industriously carried on, to contribute 
the largest possible percentage to the kingdom of 
Ood. 

Still, we must admire the manner in which the 
Great Physician took the diagnosis of this man's 
case and grappled it. We all need heroic spiritual 
treatment. ' We do not get well of sin because we 
do not realize what a dire disease it is, and that 
we cannot cure it with a spiritual panacea, a 
gentle antidote, a few grains of spiritual mor- 
phine, a mild moral corrective or a few drops of 
peppermint on white sugar. 

We want our pride killed, and we read an essay 
on that sweet grace of humility, and we go on as 
proud as ever. The pleasant lozenge does not do 
the work. Eather let us set ourselves to do that 
for Christ which is most oppugnant to our natural 
feelings. You do not take part in prayer-meeting 
because you cannot pray like Edward Payson, or 
exhort like John Summerfield. If you want to 
crush your pride, get up anyhow, though your 
knees knock together, and your tongue catches 
fast, and you see some godless hearer in prayer- 
meeting laughing as though she would burst. 

Deal with your avarice in the same heroic style. 
Having heard the charitable cause presented, at 
the first right impulse thrust your hand in your 
pocket where the money is, and pull it out though 
it half kills you. Pull till it comes. Put it on 
the plate with an emphasis, and turn your face 
away before you are tempted to take it back again. 
All your sv/eet contemplation about benevolence 
will not touch your case. Heroic treatment or 
nothing ! 

In the same way destroy the vindictiveness of 
your nature. Treatises on Christian brotherhood 
are not what you need. Select the man most dis- 
-agreeable to you, and the one who has said the 



Sacrificing Everything . 279 

hardest things about you. Go up and shake hands 
with him, and ask him how his family is, and 
how his soul prospers. All your enmities will fly 
like a flock of quails at the bang of a rifle. 

We treat our sins too politely. We ought to call 
them by their right names. Hatred to our neigh- 
bor should not be called hard thoughts, but mur- 
der: '^ whoso hateth his brother is a murderer!'* 
Sin is abominable. It has tusks and claws, and 
venom in its bite, and death in its stroke. Mild 
treatment will not do. It is loathsome, filthy and 
disgusting. If we bid a dog in gentle words to go 
out of the house, he will lie down under the table. 
It wants a sharp voice and a determined manner 
to make him clear out, and so sin is a vile cur 
that cannot be ejected by any conservative policy. 
It must be kicked out ! 

Alas for the young man of the text ! He refused 
Christ's word and went away to die, and there 
iire now those who cannot submit to Christ's 
command, and after fooling their time aw^ay with 
moral elixirs suddenly relapse and perish. They 
might have been cured, but would not take the 
medicine. 



CHAPT:eR LX. 

THE YOUNGSTERS HAVE LEFT, 

The children after quitting the tea-table were 
too noisy for Sabbath night, and some things 
were said at the table critical of their behavior, 
when old Dominie Scattergood dawned upon the 
subject and said : 

We expect too much of our children when tliey 
become Christians. Do not let us measure their 
qualifications by our own bushel. We ought not 
to look for a gravity and deep appreciation of 
eternal things such as we find in grown persons. 
We have seen old sheep in the pasture-field look 
anxious and troubled because the lambs would 
frisk. 

No doubt the children that were lifted by their 
mothers in Christ's arms, and got His blessing, 
five minutes after He set them down were as full 
of romp as before they came to Him. The boy 
that because he has become a Christian is dis- 
gusted with ball-playing, the little girl who be- 
cause she has given her heart to God has lost her 
interest in her waxen-doll, are morbid and un- 
healthy. You ought not to set the life of a 
vivacious child to the tune of Old Hundred. 

When the little ones come before you and apply 
for church membership, do not puzzle them with 
big words, and expect large ^^experiences." It 
is now in the church as when the disciples of old 
told the mothers not to bother Christ with their 
babes. As in some households the grown people 
eat first, and the children have to wait till the 
second table, so there are persons who talk as 
though God would have the grown people first sit 

280 



The Youngsters Have Left, 281 

down at His banquet; and if there is anything 
over the little ones may come in for a share. 

No, no! If the supply at the Lord's table were 
limited, Ke would let the children come in first 
and the older ones go without, as a punishment 
for not having come in while they themselves 
were children. If the wind is from the north- 
east, and the air is full of frost and snow, and 
part of the flock must be left out on the mountains, 
let it be the old sheep, for they can stand it 
better than the lambs. O Shepherd of Israel, 
crowd them all in before the coming of the tem- 
pest! 

Myself. — Dominie Scattergood, what do you 
think of this discussion in the papers on the sub- 
ject of liturgies? 

Scattergood. — I know there has been much talk 
of late about liturgies in the churches, and 
whether or not audiences should take audible part 
in religious service. While others are discussing 
that point, let me say that all the service of the 
Church ought to be responsive if not with audible 
*^Amen, " and unanimous ''Good Lord, deliver 
us, ' ' then with hearty outburst of soul. 

Let not the prayer of him that conducts public 
service go up solitary and alone, but accompanied 
by the heartfelt ejaculation of all the auditory. 
We sit down on a soft cushion, in a pew by archi- 
tectural skill arranged to fit the shape of our back, 
and are tempted to fall into unprofitable reveries. 
Let the efi'ort be on the part of every minister to 
make the prayer and the Scripture-reading and 
the giving out of the hymn so emphatic that the 
audience cannot help but respond with all the 
soul. 

Let the minister, before going into the pulpit, 
look over the whole field and recall what are the 
styles of bereavement in the congregation — ■ 
whether they be widowhood, orphanage or child- 



282 Around the Tea-table. 

lessness ; what are the kinds of temporal loss his 

Eeople may recently have suffered — whether in 
ealth, in reputation .or estate ; and then get both 
his shoulders under these troubles, and in his 
prayer give one earnest and tremendous lift, and 
there will be no dullness, no indifference, no lack 
of multitudinous response. 

The reason that congregations have their heads 
bobbing about in prayer-time is because the offi- 
ciating clergyman is apt to petition in the abstract. 
He who calls the troubles of his people by their 
right names, and tenderly lays hold of the can- 
cers of the souls before him, will not lack in 
getting immediate heartfelt, if not audible, re- 
sponse. 

While we have not as much interest in the 
agitated question of liturgies as would make us 
say ten words about it, we are interested more 
than we can tell in the question, How shall the 
officiating ministers, in all the churches, give so 
much point, and adaptedness, and vigor and 
blood-red earnestness* of soul to their public de- 
votions as shall make all the people in church feel 
that it is the struggle for their immortal life in 
which the pastor is engaged? Whether it be in 
tones that strike the ear, or with a spiritual em- 
phasis heard only in the silent corridor of the 
heart, let all the people say Amen ! 

Myself. — What do you think^ Dominie, about 
all this talk about sensationalism in the pulpit? 

Scattergood. — As far as I can understand, it 
seems to be a war between stagnation and sensa- 
tionalism, and I dislike both. 

I do not know which word is the worst. It is 
the national habit in literature and religion to 
call that sensationalism which we ourselves can- 
not do. If an author write a book that will not 
sell, he is apt to charge the books of the day 
which do succeed as being sensational. There 



The Youngsters Have Left, 283 

are a great many men who, in the world and the 
Church, are dead failures, who spend their time 
in letting the public know that they are not 
sensationalists. The fact is that they never 
made any stir while living, nor will they in 
dying, save as they rob the undertaker of his 
fees, they not leaving enough to pay their dis- 
mission expenses. 

I hate sensationalism in the pulpit so far as that 
word means the preaching of everything but the 
gospel, but the simple fact is that whenever and 
wherever faith and repentance and heaven and 
hell are proclaimed with emphasis there will be 
a sensation. The people in our great cities are 
hungry for the old gospel of Christ. If our young 
men in the ministry want large audiences, let 
them quit philosophizing, and hair-splitting, and 
botanizing, and without gloves take hold of men's 
sins and troubles, and there will be no lack of 
hearers. Stagnation is worse than sensationalism. 

I have always noticed that just in proportion as 
a man cannot get along himself he is fearful of 
some one else making an excitement. Last week 
a mud-turtle down by the brook opened its shell 
and discoursed to a horse that was coming down 
to drink. The mud-turtle said to the horse : ^ ^ Just 
as I get sound asleep you are sure to come past 
and wake me up. We always used to have a good 
quiet time down here in the swamp till you got in 
the habit of thumping along this way. I am con- 
servative and like to keep in my shell. I have been 
pastor of thirteen other mud-turtles, and we al- 
ways had peace until you came, and next week at 
our semi-annual meeting of mud-turtles we shall 
either have you voted a nuisance or will talk it 
over in private, eight or ten of us, which will 
probably be the more prudent way." Then the 
mud-turtle'sshell went shut with a snap, at which 
the horse kicked up his heels as he turned to go 



284 Around the Tea-table, 

up to the barn to be harnessed to a load of corn 
that was ready for the market. 

Ijet us all wake up and go to work. There are 
in the private membership of our churches and in 
the ministry a great many men who are dead, 
but have never had the common decency to get 
buried. With the harvest white and ''lodging'^ 
for lack of a sickle, instead of lying under the 
trees criticising the sweating reapers who are at 
work, let us throw off our own coat and go out to 
see how good a swathe we can cut. 

Myself. — You seem. Dominie Scattergood, 
though you have been preaching a great while, to 
be very healthy and to have a sound throat. 

Scattergood. — Yes; I don't know any reason 
why ministers should not be as well as other per- 
sons. I have never had the ministers' sore throat, 
but have avoided it by the observance of two or 
three rules which I commend to you of less ex- 
perience. The drug stores are full of troches, 
lozenges and compounds for speakers and singers. 
All these medicines have an important mission, 
but how much better would it be to avoid the ills 
than to spend one's time in trying to cure them! 

1. Speak naturally. Let not incompetent elo- 
cutionists or the barbarisms of custom give you 
tones or enunciations at war with those that God 
implanted. Study the vocal instrument and then 
play the best tune on it possible, but do not try 
to make a flute sound like a trumpet, or a bagpipe 
do the work of a violin. 

2. Eemember that the throat and lungs were no 
more intended to speak with than the whole body. 
If the vocal organs get red hot during a religious 
service, while the rest of the body does not sym- 
pathize with them, there will be inflammation, 
irritation and decay. But if the man shall, by 
appreciation of some great theme of time and 
eternity, go into it with all his body and soul, 



The Youngsters Have Left, 285 

there will be an equalization of the whole physi- 
cal organism, and bronchitis will not know 
whether to attack the speaker in his throat, right 
knee or left ankle, and w^hile it is deciding at 
what point to make assault the speaker will go 
scot-free. The man who besieges an audience 
only with his throat attempts to take a castle with 
one gun, but he who comes at them with head, 
eyes, hand, heart, feet, unlimbers against it a 
whole park of artillery. Then Sebastopol is sure 
to be taken. 

Myself. — I notice. Dominie, that your hand- 
WTiting is not as good as your health. Your letter 
in reply to my invitation to be here was so indis- 
tinct that I could not tell whether it was an 
acceptance or a declinature. 

Scattergood. — Well, I have not taken much care 
of my autograph. I know that the attempt has 
been made to reduce handwriting to a science. 
Many persons have been busy in gathering the 
signatures of celebrated men and women. A 
Scotchman, by the name of Watson, has paid 
seventy-five thousand dollars for rare autographs. 
Eev. Dr. Sprague, of Albany, has a collection 
marvelous for interest. 

After we read an interesting book w^e want to 
see the author's face and his autograph. But 
there is almost always a surprise or disappoint- 
ment felt when for the first time we come upon 
the handwriting of persons of whom we have 
heard or read much. We often find that the bold, 
dashing nature sometimes wields a trembling pen, 
and that some man eminent for weakness has a 
defiant penmanship that looks as if he wrote with 
a splinter of thunderbolt. 

I admit that there are instances in which the 
character of the man decides the style of his pen- 
manship. Lord Byron's autograph was as reckless 
as its author. Georsre Washinsrton's sisrnature was 



286 Around the Tea-table, 

a reflection of his dignity. The handwriting of 
Samuel Eogers was as smooth as his own nature. 
Eobespierre's fierce-looking autograph seems to 
have been written with the dagger of a French 
revolution. 

On the contrary, one's handwriting is often the 
antipodes of his character. An unreasonable 
schoolmaster has often, \}j false instruction, 
cramped or ruined the pupil's chirography for 
ever. If people only knew how a brutal peda- 
gogue in the academy used to pull my ears while 
learning to write, I should not be so often censured 
for my own miserable scribble. I defy any boy 
to learn successfully to make ^' hooks and tram- 
mels'' in his copy-book, or ever after learn to 
trace a graceful calligraphy, if he had * ' old Talyor ' ' 
bawling over him. I hope never to meet that 
man this side of heaven, lest my memory of the 
long-ago past be too much for the sense of minis- 
terial propriety. 

There are great varieties of circumstances that 
influence and decide the autograph. I have no 
faith in the science of chirography. I could, 
from a pack of letters in one pigeon-hole, put to 
rout the whole theory. I have come to the con- 
clusion that he who judges of a man's character 
by his penmanship makes a very poor guess. The 
boldest specimen of chirography I ever received 
was from a man whose wife keeps him in per- 
petual tremor, he surrendering every time she 
looks toward the broomstick. 

Myself. — What do you think, Dominie, of the 
fact that laymen have begun to preach? and what 
is your opinion of the work they are doing in 
Scotland? 

For the first time in many a day the old Dom- 
inie grew sarcastic, and said : 

What are we coming to? Get out your fire- 
engines. There is a conflagration. What work 



The Youngsters Have Left, 287 

Messrs. Moody, Sankey, Phillips, Bliss, Jacobs, 
Burnell, Dnrant and fifty other laymen have done. 
Wherever they go they have large concourses of 
people, and powerful revivals of religion follow. 
Had we not better appoint a meeting of confer- 
ence or presbytery to overhaul these men who are 
saving souls without license? No ! What we want 
is ten thousand men just like them, coming up 
from among the people, with no professional garb, 
and hearts hot with religious fervor, and bound 
by no conventionalities or stereotyped notions 
about the way things ought to be done. 

I have a sly suspicion that the layman who has 
for seven years given the most of his time to the 
study of the truth is better prepared to preach the 
gospel than a man who has given that length of 
time in theological seminaries to the study of 
what other people say about the Bible. In other 
words, we like water just dipped from the spring, 
though handed in a gourd, rather than water that 
has been standing a week in a silver pitcher. 

After Calvin has twisted us one way, and Ar- 
minius has twisted us another, and we get our 
head full of the old Andover and New Haven 
theological fights, and the difference between Ante- 
Nicene Trinitarianism and Post-Nicene Trini- 
tarianism, it is a luxury to meet some evangelist 
who can tell us in our common mother-tongue of 
Him who came to seek and to save that which 
was lost. 

I say let our learned institutions push theologi- 
cal education to its highest excellency, preparing 
men for spheres which none but the cultured and 
scholarly are fit for, but somehow let us beat the 
drum and gather a battalion of lay-workers. We 
have enough wise men to tell us about fishes, 
about birds, about rocks, about stars — enough 
lieyden jars, enough telescopes, enough electric 
batteries: but we have not more than one man 



288 Around the Tea-table, 

where we ought to have a hundred to tell the 
story of Christ and the soul. 

Some cry out, ' ^ It is dangerous to have laymen 
take such prominent positions in the Church. ' * 
Dangerous to what? Our dignity, our prerogatives, 
our clerical rights? It is the same old story. If 
we have a mill on the stream, we do not want some 
one else to build a mill on the same stream. It 
will take the water off our wheel. But, blessed 
be God! the river of salvation is deep and strong 
enough to grind corn for all nations. 

If a pulpit is so weak that the wave of religious 
zeal on the part of the laity submerges it, then let 
it go under. We cannot expect all other shipping 
to forsake the sea lest they run down our craft. 
We want more watchmen on the wail, more senti- 
nels at the gate, more recruits for the field. Forward 
the whole Christian laity ! Throw up no barrier 
to their advancement. Do not hang the Church 
until dead by the neck with ^ ^red-tape." 

I laughed outright, though I ought to have 
cried, when I read in one of our papers a state- 
ment of the work of Moody and Sankey in Edin- 
burgh, which state"z:v3nt closed with the luscious 
remark that ''Probaoiy the Lord is blessing their 
work. " I never saw a word put in more awkward 
and forced and pitiable predicament than that 
word probably. While heaven and earth and hell 
have recognized the stupendous work now going 
on in Scotland under God and through the instru- 
mentality of these American evangelists, a cor- 
respondent thinks that probably something has 
happened. 

Oh how hard it is to acknowledge that men 
are doing good if they do not work in our way 
and by our methods! One's heart must have got 
awfully twisted and near being damned who can 
look on a great outpouring of the Holy Ghost and 
have any use for probabilities. The tendency is 



The Youngsters Have Left, 289 

even among Christians to depreciate that which 
goes on independent of themselves and in a way 
oppugnant to their personal taste. People do not 
like those who do a thing which they themselves 
have not been able to accomplish. 

The first cry is, ''The people converted are the 
lower population, and not the educated." We 
wonder if five hundred souls brought to Christ 
from the ''Cowgate" and ^'Coalhole, " and made 
kings and priests unto God, and at last seated on 
thrones so high they will not be able to reach 
down with their foot to the crown of an earthly 
monarch, is not worth some consideration? 

Then the cry is, "They will not hold out.'* 
Time only will show that. They are doing all 
they can. You cannot expect them to hold out 
ten years in six weeks. The most faithful Chris- 
tians we have ever known were brought in through 
revivals, and the meanest, stingiest, dullest, 
hardest-to-get-on-with Christians have joined 
when the church was dead. 

When a candidate for admission comes before 
session in revival times, I ask him only seven or 
eight questions ; but when he comes during a cold 
state of religion, I ask him twenty questions, and 
get the elders to ask him as many more. In 
other words, I have more faith in conversions 
under special religious influence than under ordi- 
nary. 

The best luck I ever had in fishing was when I 
dropped the net in the bay and brought up at one 
haul twenty bluefish, with only three or four 
moss-bunkers, and the poorest luck I ever had was 
when, after standing two hours in the soggy 
meadow with one hook on the line, I felt I had a 
bite, and began to pull, more and more persuaded 
of the great size of the captive, until I flung to 
the shore a snapping-turtle. As a gospel fisherman 
I would rather run the risk of a large haul than 



290 



Around the Tea-table. 



of a solitary angling. I can soon sort out and throw 
©verboard the few moss-bunkers. 

Oh for great awakenings all over Christendom ! 

We have had a drought so long we can stand a 
freshet. Let the Hudson and the Thames and the 
Susquehanna rise and overflow the lowlands, and 
the earth be full of the knowledge of God as the 
waters fill the seas. That time is hastening, prob- 
ably! 



CHAPTER IvXI. 
FAMILY PKAYEKS. 

Take first the statement that unless our children 
are saved in early life they probably never will 
be. They who go over the twentieth year without 
Christ are apt to go all the way without Him. 
Grace, like flower-seed, needs to be sown in spring. 
The first fifteen years of life, and often the first 
six, decide the eternal destiny. 

The first thing to do with a lamb is to put it in 
the arms of the Great Shepherd. Of course we 
must observe natural laws. Give a child excessive 
meat diet, and it will grow up sensual, and cate- 
chism three times a day, and sixty grains in each 
dose, won't prevent it. Talk much in your child's 
presence about the fashions, and it will be fond 
of dress, notwithstanding all your lectures on 
humility. Fill your house with gossip, and your 
children will tattle. Culture them as much as 
you will, but give them plenty of money to spend, 
and they will go to destruction. 

But while we are to use common sense in every 
direction respecting a child, the first thing is to 
strive for its conversion, and there is nothing 
more potent than family prayers. No child ever 
gets over having heard parents pray for him. I 
had many sound threshings when I was a boy ( not 
as many as I ought to have had, for I was the 
last child and my parents let me off), but the 
most memorable scene in my childhood was father 
and mother at morning and evening prayers. I 
cannot forget it, for I used often to be squirm- 
ing around on the floor and looking at them while 
they were praying. Your son may go to the ends 

291 



292 Around the Tea-table, 

of the earth, and run through the whole catalogue 
•of transgression, but he will remember the family 
altar, and it will be a check, and a call, and perhaps 
his redemption. 

Family prayers are often of no use. Perhaps 
they are too hurried. We have so much before us 
■of the day's work that we must hustle the chil- 
dren together. We get half through the chapter 
before the family are seated. We read as if we 
were reading for a wager. We drop on our knees, 
are in the second or third sentence before they 
all get down. It is an express train, with amen 
for the first depot. We rush for the hat and over- 
coat, and are on the way to the store, leaving the 
impression that family prayers are a necessary 
nuisance, and we had better not have had any 
gathering of the family at all. Better have given 
them a kiss all around ; it would have taken less 
time and would have been more acceptable to God 
and them. 

Family prayers often fail in adaptedness. Do 
not read for the morning lesson a genealogical 
chapter, or about Samson setting the foxes' tails 
on fire, or the prophecy about the horses, black 
and red, and speckled, unless you explain why 
they were speckled. For all the good your chil- 
dren get from such reading, you might as well 
have read a Chinese almanac. Eather give the 
story of Jesus, and the children climbing into 
his arms, or the lad with the loaves and fishes, 
or the Sea of Galilee dropping to sleep under 
Christ's lullaby. 

Stop and ask questions. Make the exercise so 
interesting that little Johnny will stop playing 
with his shoe-strings, and Jenny will quit rub- 
iDing the cat's fur the wrong way. Let the prayer 
be pointed and made up of small words, and no 
wise information to the Lord about things He 
knows without your telling Him. Let the children 



Family Prayers. 293 

feel they are prayed for. Have a hymn if any of 
you can sing. Let the season be spirited, ap- 
propriate and gladly solemn. 

Family prayer also fails when the whole day is 
not in harmony with it. A family prayer, to be 
worth anything, ought to be twenty-four hours 
long. It ought to give the pitch to all the day's 
work and behavior. The day when we get thor- 
oughly mad upsets the morning devotion. The 
life must be in the same key with the devotion. 

Family prayer is infinitely important. If you 
are a parent, and are not a professor of religion, 
and do not feel able to compose a prayer, get some 
one of the many books that have been written, 
put it down before you, and read prayers for the 
household. God has said that He will "pour out 
His fury upon the family that call not upon His 
name. ' ' 

Prayer for our children will be answered. My 
grandmother was a praying woman. My father's 
name was David. One day, he and other mem- 
bers of the family started for a gay party. Grand- 
mother said: ''Go, David, and enjoy yourself; 
but all the time you and your brothers and sisters 
are there, I will be praying for you. ' ' They went, 
but did not have a very good time, knowing that 
their mother was praying for them. 

The next morning, grandmother heard loud 
weeping in the room below. She went down and 
found her daughter crying violently. What was 
the matter? She was in anxiety about her soul — 
an anxiety that found no relief short of the cross. 
Word came that David was at the barn in great 
agony. Grandmother went and found him oa 
the barn floor, praying for the life of his soul. 

The news spread to the neighboring houses, 
and other parents became anxious about their 
children, and the influence spread to the village 
of Somerville, and there was a great turning unto 



294 Around the Tea-table, 

<jrod ; and over two hundred souls, in one day, 
stood up in the village church to profess faith in 
Christ. And it all started from my grandmother's 
prayer for her sons and daughters. May God turn 
the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the 
hearts of the children to their fathers, lest He 
€ome and smite the earth with a curse! 



CHAPTER LXII. 
CALL TO SAILORS. 

One of the children asked us at the tea-table if 
we had ever preached at sea. We answered, No ! 
but we talked one Sabbath, mid- Atlantic, to the 
officers, crew and passengers of the steamship 
* 'China.'' By the way, I have it as it was taken 
down at the "time and afterward appeared in a 
newspaper, and here is the extract : 

No persons bound from New York to Liverpool 
ever had more cause for thanksgiving to God than 
we. The sea so smooth, the ship so staunch, the 
companionship so agreeable, all the circumstances 
so favorable. Thou who boldest the winds in 
Thy fist, blessed be Thy glorious name for ever ! 

Englishmen, Costa Eicans, Germans, Spaniards, 
Japanese, Irishmen, Americans — gathered, never 
to meet again till the throne of judgm.ent is lifted 
— let us join hands to-day around the cross of 
Jesus and calculate our prospect for eternity. 
A few moments ago we all had our sea-glasses up 
watching the vessel that went by. "What is her 
name?" we all asked, and "Whither is she 
bound?" 

We pass each other on the ocean of life to-day. 
We only catch a glimpse of each other. The 
question is, "Whither are we bound? For harbor 
of light or realm of darkness?" As we decide 
these questions, we decide everything. 

No man gets to heaven by accident. If we ar- 
rive there, it will be because w^e turn the helm, 
set the sail, watch the compass and stand on the 
"lookout" with reference to that destination. 
There are many ways of being lost — only one way 

295 



2g6 Around the Tea-table, 

of being saved ; Jesus Christ is the way. He comes 
across the sea to-day, His feet on the glass of the 
wave, as on Galilee, His arm as strong. His voic-e 
as soothing. His heart as warm. Whosoever will 
may have His comfort. His pardon, His heaven. 

Officers and crew of this ship, have you not 
often felt the need of divine help? In the hour 
of storm and shipwreck, far away from your 
homes, have you not called for heavenly rescue? 
The God who then heard thy prayer will hear 
thee now. Risk not your soul in the great future 
without compass, or chart, or anchor, or helms- 
man. You will soon have furled your last sail, 
and run up the last ratline, and weathered the 
last gale, and made the last voyage. What next? 
Where then will be your home, who your com- 
panions, what your occupation? 

Let us all thank God for this Sabbath which 
has come to us on the sea. How beautifully it 
bridges the Atlantic! It hovers above every 
barque and brig and steamer. It speaks of a 
Jesus risen, a grave conquered, a heaven open. 
It is the same old Sabbath that blessed our early 
days. It is tropical in its luxuriance, but all its 
leaves are prayers, and all its blossoms praise. 
Sabbath on the sea ! How solemn ! How sugges- 
tive ! Let all its hours, on deck, in cabin, in 
forecastle, be sacred. 

Some of the old tunes that these sailors heard 
in boyhood times would sound well to-day float- 
ing among the rigging. Try '* Jesus, lover of my 
soul, " or ^ ^ Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, ' ' 
or ''There is a fountain filled with blood." As 
soon as they try those old hymns, the memory of 
loved ones would come back again, and the famil- 
iar group of their childhood would gather, and 
father would be there, and mother who gave them 
such good advice when they came to sea, and 
sisters and brothers long since scattered and gone. 



Call to Sailors, 297 

. Some of you have been pursued by benedictions 
for many years. I care not how many knots an 
hour you may glide along, the prayers once ofifered 
up for your welfare still keep up with you. I 
care not on what shore you land, those benedic- 
tions stand there to greet you. They will capture 
you yet for heaven. The prodigal after a while 
gets tired of the swine-herd and starts for home, 
and the father comes out to greet him, and the 
old homestead rings with clapping cymbals, and 
quick feet, and the clatter of a banquet. If the 
God of thy childhood days should accost thee with 
forgiving mercy, this ship would be a Bethel, and 
your hammock to-night would be the foot of the 
ladder down which the angels of God's love 
would come trooping. 

Now, may the blessing of God come down upon 
officers and crew and passengers ! Whatever our 
partings, our losses, our mistakes, our disasters in 
life, let none of us miss heaven. On that shore 
may we land amid the welcome of those who have 
gone before. They have long been waiting our 
arrival, and are now ready to conduct us to the 
foot of the throne. Look, all ye voyagers for 
eternity! Land ahead! Weeping may endure for 
a night, but joy cometh in the morning. 

What Paul said to the crew and passengers on 
the corn -ship of the Mediterranean is appropriate 
here : ^ ' Now I exhort you to be of good cheer ! ' ^ 
God fit us for the day when the archangel, with 
one foot on the sea and the other on the land, 
shall swear by Him that liveth for ever and ever 
that time shall be no longer ! 



CHAPTER LXIII. 
JEHOSHAPHAT'S SHIPPING. 

Your attention is called to a Bible incident that 
you may not have noticed. Jehoshaphat was 
unfortunate with his shipping. He was about to 
start another vessel. The wicked men of Ahaziah 
wanted to go aboard that vessel as sailors. Jeho- 
shaphat refused to allow them to go, for the 
reason that he did not want his own men to 
mingle with those vicious people. 

In other words, he knew what you and I know 
very well, that it is never safe to go in the same 
boat with the wicked. But there are various 
applications of that idea. We too often forget it, 
»and are not as wise as Jehoshaphat was when he 
refused to allow his men to be in companionship 
in the same boat with the wicked men of Ahaziah. 

The principle I stated is appropriate to the form- 
ation, in the first place, of all domestic alliances. 
I have often known women who married men for 
the purpose of reforming them from dissipated 
habits. I never knew one successful in the under- 
taking. Instead of the woman lifting the man 
up, the man drags her down. This is inevitably 
the case. The greatest risk that one ever under- 
takes is attempting the voyage of life in a boat in 
which the wicked sail ; this remark being most 
appropriate to the young persons who are in my 
presence. It is never safe to sail with the sons 
of Ahaziah. The aged men around me will bear 
out the statement that I have made. There is no 
exception to it. 

The principle is just as true in regard to all 
business alliances. I know it is often the case 

298 



JehoshaphaV s Shipping, 299 

that men have not the choice of their worldly 
associations, but there are instances where they 
may make their choice, and in that case I wish 
them to understand that it is never safe to go in 
the same boat with the vicious. No man can 
afford to stand in associations where Christ is 
maligned and scoffed at, or the things of eternity 
caricatured. Instead of your Christianizing them, 
they will heathenize you. While you propose to 
lift them up, they will drag you down. It is a 
sad thing when a man is obliged to stand in a 
business circle where men are deriding the reli- 
gion of the Lord Jesus Christ. For instance, 
rather than to be associated in business circles 
with Frothinghamite infidelity, give me a first- 
€lass Mohammedan, or an unconverted Chinese, 
or an unmixed Hottentot. There is no danger 
that they will draw me down to their religion. 

If, therefore, you have a choice when you go 
out in the world as to whether you will be asso- 
ciated in business circles with men who love God, 
or those who are hostile to the Christian religion, 
you might better sacrifice some of your financial 
interests and go among the people of God than 
risk the interests of your immortal soul. 

Jehoshaphat knew it was unsafe for his men to 
go in one boat with the men of Ahaziah, and you 
cannot afford to have business associations with 
those who despise God, and heed not His com- 
mandments. I admit the fact that a great many 
men are forced into associations they despise, and 
there are business circles in which we are com- 
pelled to go which we do not like, but if you 
have a choice, see that you make an intelligent 
and safe one. 

This principle is just as true in regard to social 
connections. Let no young man or woman go in 
a social circle where the influences are vicious or 
hostile to the Christian religion. You will begin 



300 Around the Tea-table, 

by reproving their faults, and end by copying 
them. Sin is contagious. You go among those 
who are profane, and you will be profane. You 
go among those who use impure language, and 
you will use impure language. Go among those 
who are given to strong drink, and you will 
inevitably become an inebriate. There is no 
exception to the rule. A man is no better than 
the company he continually keeps. 
^ It is always best to keep ourselves under Chris- 
tian influences. It is not possible, if you mingle 
in associations that are positively Christian, not 
to be made better men or women. The Christian 
people with whom you associate may not be 
always talking their religion, but there is some- 
thing in the moral atmosphere that will be life to 
your soul. You choose out for your most intimate 
associates eight or ten Christian people. You 
mingle in that association ; you take their coun- 
sel ; you are guided by their example, and you 
live a useful life, and die a happy death, and go 
to a blessed eternity. There is no possibility of 
mistaking it ; there is not an exception in all the 
universe or ages — not one. 

For this reason I wish that Christians engage 
in more religious conversation. I do not really 
think that Christian talk is of so high a type as 
it used to be. Some of you can look back to your 
very early days and remember how the neighbors 
used to come in and talk by the hour about Christ 
and heaven and their hopes of the eternal world. 
There has a great deal of that gone out of fashion. 

I suppose that if ten or fifteen of us should 
happen to come into a circle to spend the even- 
ing, we would talk about the late presidential 
election, or the recent flurry in Wall street, and 
about five hundred other things, and perhaps we 
would not talk any about Jesus Christ and our 
hopes of heaven. That is not Christianity ; that 



JchoshaphaV s Shipping, 301 

is heathenism. Indeed, I have sometimes been 
amazed to find Christian people actually lacking 
in subjects of conversation, while the two persons 
knew each of the other that he was a Chris- 
tian. 

You take two Christian people of this modern 
day and place them in the same room (I suppose 
the two men may have no worldly subjects in 
common). What are they talking about? There 
being no worldly subject common to them, they 
are in great stress for a subject, and after a long 
pause Mr. A remarks : " It is a pleasant evening. ' ' 

Again there is a long pause. These two men, 
both redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, heaven above them, hell beneath them, 
eternity before them, the glorious history of the 
Church of Jesus Christ behind them, certainly 
after a while they will converse on the subject of 
religion. A few minutes have passed and Mr. B 
remarks : ' ' Fine autumn we are having. ' ' 

Again there is a profound quiet. Now, you 
suppose that their religious feelings have really 
been dammed back for a little while ; the men 
have been postponing the things of God and eter- 
nity that they may approach the subject with 
more deliberation, and you wonder what useful 
thing Mr. B will say to Mr. A in conversation. 

It is the third time, and perhaps it is the last 
that these two Christian men will ever meet until 
they come face to face before the throne of God. 
They know it. The third attempt is now made. 
Mr. A says to Mr. B: ''Feels like snow!'/ 

My opinion is, it must have felt more like ice. 
Oh, how little real, practical religious conversa- 
tion there is in this day ! I would to God that 
we might get back to the old-time Christianity, 
w^hen men and women came into associations, and 
felt, ' * Here I must use all the influence I can for 
Christ upon that soul, and get all the good I can. 



302 AroMfid the Tea- table. 

This may be the last opportunity I shall have in 
this world of interviewing that immortal spirit. ' ' 

But there are Christian associations where men 
and women do talk out their religion ; and my 
advice to you is to seek out all those things, and 
remember that just in proportion as you seek such 
society will you be elevated and blessed. After 
all, the gospel boat is the only safe boat to sail in. 
The ships of Jehoshaphat went all to pieces at 
Eziongeber. 

Come aboard this gospel craft, made in the dry- 
dock of heaven and launched nineteen hundred 
years ago in Bethlehem amid the shouting of the 
angels. Christ is the captain, and the children 
of God are the crew. The cargo is made up of 
the hopes and joys of all the ransomed. It is a 
ship bound heavenward, and all the batteries of 
God will boom a greeting as we sail in and drop 
anchor in the still waters. Come aboard that 
ship ; it is a safe craft ! The fare is cheap ! It 
is a certain harbor ! 

The men of Ahaziah were forbidden to come 
aboard the ships of Jehoshaphat, but all the 
world is invited to board this gospel craft. The 
vessel of Jehoshaphat went to pieces, but this 
craft shall drop anchor within the harbor, and 
mountains shall depart, and hills shall be removed, 
and seas shall dry up, and time itself shall perish, 
but the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to 
everlasting upon them that fear Him. 



CHAPTER IvXIV. 
ALL ABOUT MEKCY. 

Benedict XIII. decreed that when the German 
Catholics met each other, they should al ways- 
give the following salutation, the one tirst speak- 
ing saying, ''Praised be Jesus Christ, " the other 
responding, ' ' For ever, amen, ' ' a salutation fit 
for Protestants whenever they come together. 

The word "mercy" is used in the Bible two 
hundred and fourteen times ; it seems to be the- 
favorite word of all the Scriptures. Sometimes 
it glances feebly upon us like dew in the starlight ; 
then with bolder hand it seems to build an arched 
bridge from one storm-cloud of trouble to another ; 
and then again it trickles like a fountain upon^ 
the thirst of the traveler. 

The finest roads I ever saw are in Switzerland. 
They are built by the government, and at very 
short intervals you come across water pouring out 
of the rocks. The government provides cups for 
men and troughs for the animals to drink out of. 
And our King has so arranged it that on the high- 
way we are traveling toward heaven, ever and 
anon there shall dash upon us the clear, sweet 
water that flows from the eternal Rock. I pro- 
pose to tell you some things about God's mercy. 

First, think of His pardoning mercy. The 
gospel finds us shipwrecked ; the wave beneath 
ready to swallow us, the storm above pelting us, 
our good works foundered, there is no such thing 
as getting ashore unhelped. The gospel finds us- 
incarcerated ; of all those who have been in thick 
dungeon darkness, not one soul ever escaped by, 
his own power. If a soul is delivered at all, it is 

303 



304 Around the Tea-table, 

because some one on the outside shall shove the 
bolt and swing open the door, and let the prisoner 
come out free. 

The sin of the soul is not, as some would seem 
to think, just a little dust on the knee or elbow 
that you can strike off in a moment and without 
any especial damage to you. Sin has utterly dis- 
comfited us ; it has ransacked our entire nature ; 
it has ruined us so completely that no human 
power can ever reconstruct us ; but through the 
darkness of our prison gloom and through the 
storm there comes a voice from heaven, saying, 
* ' I will abundantly pardon. ' ' 

Then think of His restraining mercy. I do not 
believe that it is possible for any man to tell his 
capacity for crime until he has been tested. There 
have been men who denounced all kinds of frauds, 
who scorned all mean transactions, who would 
have had you believe that it was impossible for 
them ever to be tempted to dishonesty, and yet 
they may be owning to-day the chief part of the 
stock in the Credit Mobilier. 

There are men who once said they never could 
be tempted to intemperance. They had no mercy 
on the drunkard. They despised any man who 
became a victim of strong drink. Time passed 
on, and now they are the victims of the bottle, 
so far gone in their dissipation that it is almost 
impossible that they ever should be rescued. 

So there have been those who were very hard 
on all kinds of impurity, and who scoffed at 
unchastity, and who said that it was impossible 
that they should ever be led astray ; but to-night 
they are in the house whose gates are the gates of 
hell! It is a very dangerous thing for a man to 
make a boast and say, ^ ' Such and such a sin I 
never could be tempted to commit. ' ' 

There are ten thousand hands of mercy holding 
us up ; there are ten thousand hands of mercy 



All About Mercy. 305 

holding us back, or we would long ago have gone 
over the precipice, and instead of sitting to-night 
in a Cftiristian sanctuary, amid the respected and 
the good, our song would have been that of the 
drunkard, or we would be ' ' hail fellows well met' ' 
with the renegade and the profligate. Oh, the 
restraining mercy of God ! Have you never cele- 
brated it? Have you never rejoiced in it? 

Think also of His guiding mercy. You have 
sometimes been on a journey, and come to where 
there were three roads — one ahead of you, one to 
the right and one to the left. It was a lonely 
place, and you had no one of whom to ask advice. 
You took the left-hand road, thinking that w-as 
the right one, but before night you found out your 
mistake, and yet your horse was too exhausted 
and you were too tired to retrace your steps, and 
the mistake you made was an irretrievable mis- 
take. 

You come on in life, many a time, and find 
there are three or four or fifty roads, and which 
one of the fifty to take you do not know. Let me 
say that there 'are forty -nine chances out of fifty 
that you will take the wrong one, unless God 
directs you, since it is a great deal easier to do 
that which is wrong than that which is right, our 
nature being corrupt and depraved. 

Blessed be God, we have a directory ! As a man 
lost on the mountains takes out his map and sees 
the right road marked down, and makes up his 
mind what to do, so the Lord, in His gospel map, 
has said: "This is the way, walk ye in it." 
Blessed be God for His guiding mercy! 

Think also of the comforting mercy of God. In 
the days when men lived five or six or seven hun- 
dred years, I suppose that troubles and misfor- 
tunes came to them at very great intervals. Life 
did not go so fast. There were not so many vicis- 
situdes ; there w^as not so much jostling. I suppose 



3o6 Ai^oitnd the Tea-table . 

that now a man in > forty years will have as 
many vexations and annoyances and hardshipg 
and trials and temptations as those antediluvians 
had in four hundred years. 

No one escapes. If you are not wounded in 
this side, you must be wounded in that. There 
are foes all around about you. There is no one 
who has come up to this moment without having 
been cleft of misfortunes, without having been 
disappointed and vexed and outraged and 
trampled on. 

The world comes and tries to solace us, but I 
think the most impotent thing on earth is human 
comfort when there is no gospel mixed with it. 
It is a sham and an insult to a wounded spirit — 
all the comfort that this world can offer a man ; 
but in his time of darkness and perplexity and 
bereavement and persecution and affliction, Christ 
comes to him with the solace of His Spirit, and 
He says: ^'Oh, thou tempted one, thou shalt not 
be tempted above that thou art able. ' ' He tells 
the invalid, '^There is a land where the inhabit- 
ants never say, 'I am sick.' '' He says to the 
assaulted one, ' ^ You are no better than I am ; 
they maltreated me, and the servant ought not to 
expect to have it easier than his Lord. " 

He comes to the bereaved one and says : ^ ^ I am 
the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. ' ' And 
if the trouble be intricate, if there be so many 
prongs to it, so many horns to it, so many hoofs 
to it, that he cannot take any of the other prom- 
ises and comforts of God's word to his soul, he 
can take that other promise made for a man in 
the last emergency and when everything else fails : 
''All things work together for good to those that 
love God. ' ' Oh, have you never sung of the com- 
forting mercy of God? 

Think also of His enthroning mercy. Notwith- 



All About Mercy. 307 

standing there are so many comforts in Christ's 
gospel. I do not think that we could stand the 
assault and rebuff of the world for ever. We all 
were so weary of the last war. It seemed as if 
those four years w^ere as long as any fifteen or 
twenty years of our life. But how could we endure 
one hundred years, or five hundred years, or a 
thousand years'^, of earthly assault? Methinks the 
spirit would wear down under the constant chaf- 
ing and the assault of the world. 

Blessed be God, this story of grief and trouble 
and perplexity will come to an end ! There are 
twelve gates to heaven, and they are all gates of 
mercy. There are paths coming into all those 
gates, and they are all paths of mercy. There are 
bells that ring in the eternal towers, and they are 
all chimes of mercy. There are mansions prepared 
for us in this good land when we have done with 
the toils of earth, and all those mansions are man- 
sions of mercy. Can you not now strike upon 
your soul, saying, ''Bless the Lord, O my soul, 
for thy pardoning mercy, for thy restraining 
mercy, for thy guiding mercy, for thy comforting: 
mercy, for thy enthroning mercy P' 



CHAPTER LXV. 
UNDEK THE CAMEL'S SADDLE. 

Eacliel had been affianced to Jacob, and one day 
while her father, Laban, was away from home she 
eloped with Jacob. Laban returned home and 
expressed great sorrow that he had not been there 
when his daughter went away, saying that he 
would have allowed her to go, and that she might 
have been accompanied with a harp and the dance 
and with many beautiful presents. 

Laban started for Rachel and Jacob. He was 
very anxious to recover the gods that had been 
stolen from his household. He supposed that 
Eachel had taken them, as she really had. He 
came up in the course of a few days to the party 
and demanded the gods that had been taken from 
his house. Jacob knew nothing about the felony, 
but Rachel was secreting these household gods. 

Laban came into the tent where she was, and 
asked for them. She sat upon a saddle of a camel, 
the saddle having been laid down at the side of 
the tent, and under this camel's saddle were the 
images. Rachel pretended to be sick, and said 
she could not rise. Her father, Laban, supposed 
that she told the truth, and looked everywhere 
but under the camel's saddle, where really the 
lost images were. He failed in the search, and 
went back home without them. 

It was a strange thing for Laban to do. He pre- 
tended to be a worshiper of the true God. What 
did he want of those images? Ah, the fact was, 
that though he worshiped God, he worshiped with 
only half a heart, and he sometimes, I suppose, 
repented of the fact that he worshiped him at all, 

308 



Under the Carrier s Saddle, 309 

and really had a hankering after those old gods 
which in his earliest days he had worshiped. And 
now we find him in Rachel's tent looking for 
them. 

Do not let us, however, be too severely critical 
of Laban. He is only the representative of thou- 
sands of Christian men and women, who, once- 
having espoused the worship of God, go back to 
their idols. When a man professes faith in Christ 
on communion-day, with the sacramental cup in 
his hand, he swears allegiance to the Lord God 
Almighty, and says, ''Let all my idols perish!" 
but how many of us have forsaken our fealty to- 
God, and have gone back to our old idols! 

There are many who sacrifice their soul's inter- 
ests in the idolatry of wealth. There was a time- 
when you saw the folly of trying with money to 
satisfy the longing of your soul. You said, when 
you saw men going down into the dust and tussle 
of life, "Whatever god I worship, it won't be a 
golden calf. " You saw men plunge into the life 
of a spendthrift, or go down into the life of a 
miser, like one of old smothered to death in his 
own money-chest, and you thought, "I shall be 
very careful never to be caught in these traps in 
which so many men have fallen, to their souls' 
eternal discomfiture. ' ' 

But you went down into the w^orld ; you felt 
the force of temptation ; you saw men all around 
you making money very fast, some of them sacri- 
ficing all their Christian principle ; you felt the 
fascination come upon your own soul, and before 
you knew it, you were wuth Laban going down to- 
hunt in Rachel's tent for your lost idols. 

On one of our pieces of money you find the 
head of a goddess, a poor inscription for an 
American coin ; far better the inscription that 
the old Jews put upon the shekel, a pot of manna 
and an almond rod, alluding to the mercy and 



3IO Around the Tea-table, 

deliverance of God in their behalf in other days. 
But how seldom it is that money is consecrated 
to Christ ! Instead of the man owning the money, 
the money owns the man. It is evident, especially 
to those with whom they do business every day, 
that they have an idol, or that, having once for- 
saken the idol, they are now in search of it, far 
away from the house of God, in EachePs tent 
looking for the lost images. 

One of the mighty men of India said to his ser- 
vants : ' ' Go not near the cave in such a ravine. ' ' 
The servants talked the matter over, and said: 
''There must be gold there, or certainly this 
mighty man would not warn us against going. ' * 
They went, expecting to find a pile of gold ; they 
rolled away the stone from the door of the cave, 
when a tiger sprang out upon them and devoured 
them. 

Many a man in the search of gold has been 
craunched in the jaws of destruction. Going out 
far away from the God whom they originally wor- 
ishiped, they are seeking in the tent of Eachel, 
Laban's lost images. 

There are a great many Christians in this day 
renewing the idolatry of human opinion. There 
was a time when they woke up to the folly of 
listening to what men said to them. They solilo- 
quized in this way: ^'I have a God to worship, 
and I am responsible only to Him. I must go 
straight on and do my whole duty, whether the 
world likes it or don't like it;" and they turned 
a deaf ear to the fascinations of public applause. 
After a while they did something very popular. 
They had the popular ear and the popular heart. 
Men ap;proved them, and poured gentle words of 
flattery into their ear, and before they realized 
it they went into the search of that which they 
had given up, and were, with Laban, hunting in 
EachePs tent for the lost images. 



Under the Camel's Saddle. 311 

Between eleven and twelve o'clock one June 
night, Gibbon, the great historian, finished his 
history. Seated in a summer garden, he says that 
as he wrote the last line of that wonderful work he 
felt great satisfaction. He closed the manuscript, 
walked out into the moonlight in the garden, and 
then, he said, he felt an indescribable melancholy 
come upon his soul at the thought that so soon he 
must leave all the fame that he would acquire by 
that manuscript. 

The applause of this world is a very mean god 
to worship. It is a Dagon that falls upon its 
worshipers and crushes them to death. Alas for 
those who, fascinated by human applause, give 
up the service of the Lord God and go with Laban 
to hunt in Eachel's tent for the lost images! 

There are many Christians being sacrificed to 
appetite. There was a time when they said : ' ' I 
will not surrender to evil appetites. ' ' For a while 
they seemed to break away from all the allure- 
ments by which they w^ere surrounded, but some- 
times they felt that they were living upon a severe 
regimen. They said: '^ After all, I will go back 
to my old bondage ; ' ' and they fell away from the 
house of God, and fell away from respectability, 
and fell away for ever. 

One of the kings in olden times, the legend 
says, consented that the devil might kiss him on 
both shoulders, but no sooner were the kisses im- 
printed upon the shoulders than serpents grew 
forth and began to devour him, and as the king 
tried to tear off the serpents he found he was tear- 
ing his own life out. And there are men who are 
all enfolded in adders of evil appetite and passion 
that no human power can ever crush ; and unless 
the grace of God seizes hold of them, these adders 
will become *Hhe worm that never dies." Alas 
for those who, once having broken away from the 
mastery of evil appetites and passion, go back to 



312 Around the Tea-table. 

the sins that they once renounced, and, with Laban 
in Rachel's tent, go to hunt for the lost images! 

There are a great many also sacrificed by indo- 
lence. In the hour of their conversion they looked 
off upon the world, and said: ^'Oh how much 
work to be done, how many harvests to be gath- 
ered, how many battles to be fought, how many 
tears to be wiped away, and how many wounds 
to be bound up ! ' ' and they looked with positive 
surprise upon those who could sit idle in the king- 
dom of God while there was so much work to do. 
After a while they found their efforts were unap- 
preciated, that some of their best work in behalf 
of Christ was caricatured and they were laughed 
at, and they began to relax their effort, and the 
question was no more, ''What can I do for 
Christ?'^ but "How can I take my ease? where 
can 1 find my rest?" Are there not some of you 
who in the hour of your consecration started out 
nobly, bravely and enthusiastically for the Sav- 
iour's kingdom who have fallen back into ease of 
body and ease of soul, less anxious about the sal- 
vation of men than you once were, and are actually 
this moment in Eachel's tent hunting up the lost 
images? 

Oh, why go down hunting for our old idols? 
We have found out they are insufficient for the 
soul. Eyes have they, but they see not ; ears have 
they, but they hear not ; and hands have they, 
but they handle not. There is only one God to 
worship, and He sits in the heavens. 

How do I know that there is only one God? 
I know it just as the boy knew it when his 
teacher asked him how many Gods there are. He 
said, *' There is but one." 

"How do you know that?' ' inquired the teacher. 

The boy replied, "There is only room for one, 
for He fills the heavens and the earth. ' * 

Come into the worship of that God. He is a 



Under the Cavtel' s Saddle. 313 

wise God, He can plan out all the affairs of your 
life. He can mark out all the steps that you 
ought to take. He will put the sorrows in the 
right place, and the victories in the right place, 
and the defeats in the right place ; and coming to 
the end of your life, if you have served Him 
faithfully, you will be compelled to say, **Just 
and true are thy ways ; thou art, Lord, always 
right." 

He is a mighty God. Have Him on your side, 
and you need not fear earth or hell. He can ride 
down all your spiritual foes. He is mighty to 
overthrow your enemies. He is mighty to save 
your soul. Ay, He is a loving God. He' will put 
the arms of His love around about your neck. He 
will bring you close to His heart and shelter you 
from the storm. In times of trouble He will put 
upon your soul the balm of precious promises. 
He will lead you all through the vale of tears 
trustfully and happily, and then at last take you 
to dwell in His presence, where there is fullness 
of joy, and at His right hand, where there are 
pleasures for evermore. Oh, compared with such 
a wise God, such a mighty God, such a loving 
God, what are all the images under the camel's 
saddle in the tent of Rachel? 



CHAPTER LXVI. 
HALF-AND-HALF CHURCHES. 

There is a verse in Eevelation that presents a 
nauseated Christ: ^'Because thou art lukewarm, 
and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of 
my mouth. ' ' 

After we have been taking a long walk on a 
summer day, or been on a hunting chase, a draught 
of cold water exhilarates. On the other hand, 
after standing or walking in the cold air and being 
chilled, hot water, mingled with some beverage, 
brings life and comfort to the whole body ; but 
tepid water, neither hot nor cold, is nauseating. 

Now, Christ says that a church of that tempera- 
ture acts on him as an emetic : I will spew thee 
out of my mouth. 

The church that is red hot with religious emo- 
tion, praying, singing, working, Christ having 
taken full possession of the membership, must be 
to God satisfactory. 

On the other hand, a frozen church may have 
its uses. The minister reads elegant essays, and 
improves the session or the vestry in rhetorical 
composition. The music is artistic and improves 
the ear of the people, so that they can better 
.appreciate concert and opera. 

The position of such a church is profitable to 
the book-binder who furnishes the covers to the 
liturgy, and the dry-goods merchants who supply 
the silks, and the clothiers who furnish the broad- 
cloth. Such a church is good for the business 
world, makes trade lively and increases the 
demand for fineries of all sorts, for a luxurious 
religion demands furs and coats, and gaiters to 

314 



' Half- a7id- Half Churches, 315 

match. Christ says he gets along with a church, 
cold or hot. 

But an unmitigated nuisance to God and man 
is a half-and-half church, with piety tepid. The 
pulpit in such a church makes more of orthodoxy 
than it does of Christ. It is immense on defini- 
tions. It treats of justification and sanctification 
as though they were two corpses to be dissected. 
Its sermons all have a black morocco cover, which 
some affectionate sister gave the pastor before he 
was married, to wrap his discourse in, lest it get 
mussed in the dust of the pulpit. Its gestures are 
methodical, as though the man were ever con- 
scious that they had been decreed from all eter- 
nity, and he were afraid of interfering with the 
decree by his own free agency. 

Such a pulpit never startles the people with the 
horrors of an undone eternity. No strong meat, 
but only pap, flour and water, mostly water. The 
church prayer-meeting is attended only by a few 
gray heads who have been in the habit of going 
there for twenty years, not because they expect 
any arousing time or rapturous experiences, but 
because they feel only a few will be there, and 
they ought to go. 

The minister is sound. The membership sound. 
The music sound. If, standing in a city of a 
hundred thousand people, there are five or ten 
conversions in a year, everything is thought to be 
''encouraging." But Christ says that such a 
church is an emetic. ''Because thou art neither 
cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. ' ' 

My friends, you had better warm up or freeze 
over. Better set the kettle outside in the atmos- 
phere at zero, or put it on the altar of God and 
stir up the coals into a blaze. If we do not, God 
will remove us. 

Christian men are not always taken to heaven 
as a reward, but sometimes to get them out of the 



3i6 Around the Tea-table, 

way on earth. They go to join the tenth-rate 
saints in glory ; for if such persons think they 
will stand with Paul , and Harlan Page, and Char- 
lotte Elizabeth, they are much mistaken. 

When God takes them up, the church here is 
better off. We mourn slightly to have them go, 
because we have got used to having them around, 
and at the funeral the minister says all the good 
things about the man that can well be thought of, 
because we want to make the funeral as respect- 
able as possible. I never feel so much tempted 
to lie as when an inconsistent and useless Chris- 
tian has died, and I want in my final remarks to 
make a good case out for the poor fellow. Still, 
it is an advantage to have such a man get out of 
the way. He is opposed to all new enterprises. 
He puts back everything he tries to help. His 
digestion of religious things is impaired, and his 
circulation is so poor that no amount of friction 
can arouse him. 

Now, it is dangerous for any of you to stay in 
that condition. If you cannot be moved, God 
will kill you, and He will put in your place those 
who will do the work you are neglecting. 

My friends, let all arouse ! The nearness of our 
last account, the greatness of the work to be done, 
and the calls of God's word and providence, ought 
to stir our souls. After having been in the harvest 
field so long it would be a shame in the nightfall 
of death to go home empty-handed. Gather up 
a few gleanings from the field, and beat them out, 
that it may be found that Kuth had at least ^ ^ one 
ephah of barley. ' ' 



CHAPTER LXVII. 
THOENS. 

The Christian world has long been guessing 
what Paul's thorn in the flesh was. I have a book 
that in ten pages tries to show what Paul's thorn 
was not, and in another ten pages tries to show 
what it was. 

Many of the theological doctors have felt PauPa 
pulse to see what was the matter with him. I 
suppose that the reason he did not tell us what it 
was may have been because he did not want us to 
know. He knew that if he stated what it was 
there would have been a great many people from. 
Corinth bothering him with prescriptions as to 
how he might cure it. 

Some say it was diseased eyes, some that it was 
a humped back. It may have been neuralgia. 
Perhaps it was gout, although his active habits 
and a sparse diet throw doubt on the supposition. 
Suffice to say it was a thorn — that is, it stuck him. 
It was sharp. 

It was probably of not much account in the eyes 
of the world. It was not a trouble that could be 
compared to a lion or a boisterous sea. It was like 
a thorn that you may have in your hand or foot 
and no one know it. Thus we see that it becomes 
a type of those little nettlesome worries of life 
that exasperate the spirit. 

Every one has a thorn sticking him. The house- 
keeper finds it in unfaithful domestics ; or an 
inmate who keeps things disordered ; or a house 
too small for convenience or too large to be kept 
cleanly. The professional man finds it in per 
petual interruptions or calls for ''more copy 

317 



>> 



3i8 Around the Tea-table, 

The Sabbath-school teacher finds it in inattentive 
scholars, or neighboring teachers that talk loud 
and make a great noise in giving a little instruc- 
tion. 

One man has a rheumatic joint which, when 
the wind is northeast, lifts the storm signal. 
Another a business partner who takes full half 
the profits, but does not help earn them. These 
trials are the more nettlesome because, like Paul's 
thorn, they are not to be mentioned. Men get 
gympathy for broken bones and mashed feet, but 
not for the end of sharp thorns that have been 
broken off in the fingers. 

Let us start out with the idea that we must have 
annoyances. It seems to take a certain number of 
them to keep us humble, wakeful and prayerful. 
To Paul the thorn was as disciplinary as the ship- 
wreck. If it is not one thing, it is another. If 
the stove does not smoke, the boiler must leak. 
If the pen is good, the ink must be poor. If the 
editorial column be able, there must be a typo- 
graphical blunder. If the thorn does not pierce 
the knee, it must take you in the back. Life 
must have sharp things in it. We cannot make 
up our robe of Christian character without pins 
and needles. 

We want what Paul got — grace to bear these 
things. Without it we become cross, censorious 
and irascible. We get in the habit of sticking 
our thorns into other people's fingers. But God 
helping us, we place these annoyances in the cate- 
gory of the *'all things that work together for 
good. '' We see how much shorter these thorns are 
than the spikes that struck through the palms of 
Christ's hands ; and remembering that he had on 
his head a whole crown of thorns, we take to 
ourselves the consolation that if we suffer with 
him on earth we shall be glorified with him in 
heaven. 



Thorns. 319 

But how could Paul positively rejoice in these 
infirmities? I answer that the school of Christ 
has three classes of scholars. In the first class we 
learn how to be stuck with thorns without losing 
our patience. In the second class we learn how 
to make the sting positively advantageous. In 
the third class of this school we learn how even 
to rejoice in being pierced and wounded, but that 
is the senior class ; and when we get to that, we 
are near graduation into glory. 



CHAPTER LXVIII. 
WHO TOUCHED ME? 

There is nothing more unreasonable and ungov- 
ernable than a crowd of people. Men who stand- 
ing alone or in small groups are deliberate in all 
they do, lose their self-control when they come 
to stand in a crowd. You have noticed this, if 
you have heard a cry of fire in a large assemblage, 
or have seen people moving about in great excite- 
ment in some mass-meeting, shoving, jostling and 
pulling at each other. 

But while the Lord Jesus had been performing 
some wonderful works, and a great mob of people 
were around Him, shoving this way and that way, 
all the jostling He received evoked from Him no 
response. 

After a while I see a wan and wasted woman 
pressing through the crowd. She seems to have 
a very urgent errand. I can see from her counte- 
nance that she has been a great sufferer. She comes 
close enough to put her finger on the hem of 
Christ's garment, and the very moment she puts 
her finger on that garment, Jesus says: ''Who 
touched me?'' 

^ I would like to talk to you of the extreme sen- 
sitiveness of Jesus. It is very often the case that 
those men who are mighty, have very little fine- 
ness of feeling ; but notwithstanding the fact that 
the Lord Jesus Christ was the King of glory, hav- 
ing all power in heaven and on earth, so soon as 
this sick woman comes up and puts her finger on 
the hem of His garment, that moment all the 
feelings of His soul are aroused, and He cries 
out: "Who touched me?" 

320 



Who Touched Me? 321 

I remark that poverty touches Him. The Bible 
says that this woman had spent all her money on 
physicians ; she had not got the worth of her 
money. Those physicians in Oriental lands were 
very incompetent for their work, and very exor- 
bitant in their demands. You know they have a 
habit even to this day in those countries of mak- 
ing very singular charges. Sometimes they 
examine the capacity of the person to pay, and 
they take the entire estate. 

At any rate, this woman spoken of in the text 
had spent her money on physicians, and very poor 
physicians at that. The Lord saw her poverty 
and destitution. He knew from what a miserable 
home she had come. He did not ask, ^^Who 
touched me?'' because He did not know; He 
wanted to evoke that woman's response, and He 
wanted to point all the multitude to her particular 
case before her cure was effected, in order that 
the miraculous power might be demonstrated 
before all the people, and that they might be 
made to believe. 

In this day, as then, the touch of poverty 
always evokes Christ's attention. If you be one 
who has had a hard struggle to get daily bread — 
if the future is all dark before you — if you are 
harassed and perplexed, and know not which way 
to turn, I want you to understand that, although 
in this world there may be no sympathy for you, 
the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ is immediately 
moved, and you have but to go to Him and touch 
Him with your little finger, and you arouse all 
the sympathies of His infinite nature. 

I also learn that sickness touches Him. She 
had been an invalid for twelve years. How many 
sleepless nights, what loss of appetite, what ner- 
vousness, what unrest, what pain of body, the 
world knew not. But when she came up and put 
her finger on Christ's garment, all her suffering 



322 Arou7id the Tea-table, 

thrilled through the heart of Christ instanta- 
neously. 

When we are cast down with Asiatic cholera or 
yellow fever, we cry to God for pity ; but in the 
ailments of life that continue from day to day, 
month to month and year to year are you in the 
habit of going to Christ for sympathy? Is it in 
some fell disaster alone that you call to God for 
mercy, or is it in the little aclies and pains of 
your life that you implore Him? Don't try to 
carry these burdens alone. These chronic diseases 
are the diseases that wear out and exhaust Chris- 
tian grace, and you need to get a new supply. 
Go to Him this night, if never before, with all 
your ailments of body, and say : ^ ' Lord Jesus, 
look upon my aches and pains. In this humble 
and importunate prayer I touch thee. ' ' 

I remark further that the Saviour is touched 
with all bereavements. Perhaps there is not a 
single room in your house but reminds you of 
some one who has gone. You cannot look at a 
picture without thinking she admired that. You 
cannot see a toy but you think she played with 
it. You cannot sit down and put your fingers on 
the piano without thinking she used to handle 
this instrument, and everything that is beautiful 
in your home is suggestive of positive sadness. 

Graves! graves! graves! It is the history of 
how many families to-night! You measure your 
life from tear to tear, from groan to groan, from 
anguish to anguish, and sometimes you feel that 
God has forsaken you, and you say, ^ ' Is His mercy 
clean gone forever, and will He be favorable no 
more?" 

Can it be, my afflicted friends, that you have 
been so foolish as to try to carry the burden 
alone, when there is an almighty arm willing to 
be thrust under you? Can it be that you have 
traveled that desert not willing to drink of the 



Who Touched Me f 



323 



fountains that God opened at your feet? Oh, 
have you not realized the truth that Jesus is sym- 
pathetic with bereavement? Did He not mourn 
at the grave of Lazarus, and will He not weep 
with ail those who are mourning over the 
dead? 

You may feel faint from your bereavements, 
and you may not know which way to turn, and 
all human solace may go for nothing ; but if you 
would this night with your broken heart just go 
one step further forward, pressing through all the 
crowd of your perplexities, anxieties and sorrows, 
you might with one finger move His heart, and 
He would say, looking upon you with infinite 
comfort and compassion, ''Who touched me?" 

I remark that all our sins touch Him. It is 
generally the fact that we make a record only of 
those sins which are sins of the action ; but where 
there is one sin of the action there are thousands 
of thought. Let us remember that God puts down 
in His book all the iniquitous thoughts that have 
ever gone through your souls. There they stand 
— the sins of 1820 ; the sins of 1825 ; all the sins 
of 1831 ; the sins of 1835 ; the sins of 1840 ; the 
sins of 1846 ; the sins of 1850 ; the sins of 1853 ; 
the sins of 1859 ; the sins of 1860 ; the sins of 
1865 ; the sins of 1870 ; the sins of 1874. Oh, I 
can't think of it with any degree of composure. 
I should fly in terror did I not feel that those 
sins had been erased by the hand of my Lord 
Jesus Christ— that hand which was wounded for 
my transgression. 

The snow falls on the Alps flake by flake, and 
day after day, and month after month, and after 
a while, at the touch of a traveler's foot, the ava- 
lanche slides dow^n upon the villages with terrific 
crash and thunder. So the sins of our life accum- 
ulate and pile up, and after a while, unless we 
are rescued by the grace of our Lord Jesus, they 



324 Around the Tea-table, 

will come down upon our souls in an avalanche of 
eternal ruin. 

When we think of our sins, we are apt to think 
of those we have recently committed — those sins 
of the past day, or the past week, or the past 
year ; those sins that have been in the far distance 
-are all gone from our memory. You can't call a 
half dozen of them up in your mind. But God 
remembers every one of them. There is a record 
made of them. They will be your overthrow 
unless you somehow get them out of that book. 

In the great day of judgment, God will call the 
roll, and they will all answer, ' ' here ! ' ' ^ ' here ! ' ' 
"'here!" 

Oh, how they have wounded Jesus! Did He 
not come into this world to save us? Have not 
these sins been committed against the heart and 
mercy of our Lord Jesus? Sins committed against 
us by an enemy we can stand ; but by a friend, 
how hard it is to bear ! Have we not wounded 
the Lord Jesus Christ in the house of His friends? 

Since we stood up in the presence of the great 
congregation and attested our love for Christ and 
said from this time we will serve the Lord, have 
we not all been recreant? Have we not gone 
astray like lost sheep, and there is no health in 
us? Oh, they touch Christ ; they have touched 
Him on the tenderest spot of His heart. 

Let us bemoan this treatment of our best friend. 
It seems to me Christ was never so lovely as He 
is now — the chief among ten thousand and the 
one altogether lovely. Why can't you come and 
put your trust in Him? He is an infinite Saviour. 
He can take all the iniquities of your life and 
•cast them behind His back. Blessed is the rnan 
who has obtained His forgiveness, and whose sins 
^re covered! 



